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EARLY TELEPHONY AND TELEGRAMS. An album of manuscript notes, ideas, experiments, etc., image 1
EARLY TELEPHONY AND TELEGRAMS. An album of manuscript notes, ideas, experiments, etc., image 2
EARLY TELEPHONY AND TELEGRAMS. An album of manuscript notes, ideas, experiments, etc., image 3
EARLY TELEPHONY AND TELEGRAMS. An album of manuscript notes, ideas, experiments, etc., image 4
EARLY TELEPHONY AND TELEGRAMS. An album of manuscript notes, ideas, experiments, etc., image 5
EARLY TELEPHONY AND TELEGRAMS. An album of manuscript notes, ideas, experiments, etc., image 6
EARLY TELEPHONY AND TELEGRAMS. An album of manuscript notes, ideas, experiments, etc., image 7
Lot 15

EARLY TELEPHONY AND TELEGRAMS.
An album of manuscript notes, ideas, experiments, etc.,

13 – 23 October 2024, 12:00 EDT
Online, New York

US$10,000 - US$15,000

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EARLY TELEPHONY AND TELEGRAMS.

An album of manuscript notes, ideas, experiments, etc., approximately 300 pages (150 blank), folio (325 x 205 mm), [London], [c. 1880], contemporary parchment-covered boards, marbled endpapers, containing notes, documents and drawings, related printed matter (tipped-in or loose) relating to the duplex telegraph, and telephones, and information related to the Gower-Bell which was the first telephone used in Great Britain and Europe, and bills of materials for telephones, switchboards and telegraphs, with prices. Covers soiled with some cracking and chipping, contents slightly loose, browning, with chips and some small tears to page edges.

An interesting manuscript notebook compiled by Alfred Graham, who appears to have been an engineer for Consolidated Telephone Construction and Maintenance Company, producers of Alexander Graham Bell's earliest telephones in Great Britain under license from Bell. Bell's "butterstamp" design was improved by Frederic Gower, an American living in France, and the Gower-Bell telephone became the standard in Britain, chosen for example by the General Post Office. The notebook includes drawings for improvements of the duplex telegraph, notes on a lecture on dynamos by Siemens, and printed ephemera relating to the diving telephone.

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