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Vintage Telephony and Telecomms Vintage Telephones, Telephony and Telecomms Equipment |
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11th Jul 2022, 4:19 pm | #1 |
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BT Cream Rotary 8746G "This is not a telephone"
Hi Everyone,
I was wondering if you could shed some light. I have a vintage rotary telephone, 8746G. DFM 83/2, in the middle of the dial there is a letter M and around it says "This is not a telephone", please see the photo for details. Does anyone know what the M stand for, and why it says that it is not a telephone? By the way, it works perfectly fine. Thank you in advance for your time and expertise. Sherden |
11th Jul 2022, 6:20 pm | #2 |
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Re: BT Cream Rotary 8746G "This is not a telephone"
Perhaps it was a warning that this was only an internal phone and did not connect to an exchange, what most people would think of as a "telephone"
Peter |
11th Jul 2022, 6:32 pm | #3 |
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Re: BT Cream Rotary 8746G "This is not a telephone"
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11th Jul 2022, 6:49 pm | #4 |
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Re: BT Cream Rotary 8746G "This is not a telephone"
I thought the M might refer to the Daily Mail, but the typeface isn't quite right.
Maybe an ironic reference to Nick's $3m work of art, or maybe it's not a "telephone", in the sense it wasn't capable of making external calls in its original location. PS I see Peter has already suggested that last point. PPS Welcome to the forum Sherden!
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11th Jul 2022, 7:18 pm | #5 |
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Re: BT Cream Rotary 8746G "This is not a telephone"
My thoughts immediately went to "M" for "Magritte" (as in the Belgian surrealist artist René Magritte) and his famous image "The Treachery of Images", depicting a tobacco pipe with the words "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" ("This is not a pipe").
I must also say that the image by Miguel Vallinas linked to earlier does have something of a Magritte-inspired look about it as a stepping stone between the two. Turning to the telephone itself, I'm intrigued by the suffix "G". I'm familiar with: "F" numbers-only dial "L" dial with letters as well as numbers "R" inclusion of earth recall plus a couple of more obscure variations such as "S" and "T", but not "G".
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Mending is better than Ending (cf Brave New World by Aldous Huxley) Last edited by Dave Moll; 11th Jul 2022 at 7:27 pm. Reason: 746 "G" suffix |
11th Jul 2022, 8:03 pm | #6 |
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Re: BT Cream Rotary 8746G "This is not a telephone"
I think 'G' denotes 4000R bell coils for use on what was then the modern plug and socket system with bells wired in parallel.
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11th Jul 2022, 9:23 pm | #7 |
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Re: BT Cream Rotary 8746G "This is not a telephone"
Isn't that what the "8" prefix means?
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Mending is better than Ending (cf Brave New World by Aldous Huxley) |
11th Jul 2022, 9:41 pm | #8 |
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Re: BT Cream Rotary 8746G "This is not a telephone"
Wasn't it "Dial 'M' for Murder"?
David
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11th Jul 2022, 9:45 pm | #9 |
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Re: BT Cream Rotary 8746G "This is not a telephone"
https://www.britishtelephones.com/t746.htm
Scroll down to the end of the text. These telephones were introduced long after All Figure Numbers (AFN) so F for figures and L for letters were no longer applicable.
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12th Jul 2022, 10:00 am | #10 |
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Re: BT Cream Rotary 8746G "This is not a telephone"
The devil is in the detail, Dave, and outlined on the 'N'-drawing. All the '8' means is that it's a plug-and-socket telephone. The suffix 'G' means it has a 4k bell-movement in it.
I got caught out like that once.
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