Any ideas what this is? Some sort of audio jack?

Edit: I stuck a 1/4" phone plug in it and it clicked nicely, so I'm gonna stick with that. Guess this house was wired at some point.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2010 12:10AM by jonny.

Telegraph line to the underground bunker Lincoln used to win the Civil War after his clone was shot to death in the Ford Theater.

Probably a vintage phone jack, for connecting a period phone?

Are there others or is this the only one (remaining)?

[en.wikipedia.org]

Edit: I remember being in some older houses with intercoms/buzzers from the dining room to the kitchen and/or to the servants quarters. Possibly that?



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2010 01:05AM by M>B>.

I suspect that it's an oddball UHF connector for an old antenna.

Is that house WWII-era?

My first house as a child growing up, likely built in 50s or 60s?
It had a neat radio and PHONOGRAPH unit built into the wall in the kitchen. The phono would slide out, drawer-like. It was pretty neat.

the porthole to a parallel universe
or perhaps the flux vortex on Pandora

can you get a closer shot?
I'm curious to see the stamp to the left and the engraving on the jack itself.
My guess would be a pre WWII telephone jack.

I don't think telephony is a possibility. Before RJ-11s, there were four-pin jacks. Before that, I've never seen anything other than direct wiring.

It seems odd to have a porcelain block with unshielded connections that fits a 1/4-inch phone plug. My best guess is some sort of early 50s (pre-stereo) system that allowed you to put auxiliary speakers in various rooms, hooked to your living-room "high-fidelity" set. I wish I had such a system for my apartment today.

Does a 1/4-inch phone plug actually "click" into place, or just fit in the hole?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2010 10:26AM by Mr Downtown.

because of the porcelain block and brass connector I was thinking early telephone.
We had telephone jacks like that at Record Plant for our oldest mix console's patch bay.
Each patch was made with 2 1/4" telephone plugs as one, to carry the balanced audio.
porcelain is ol timey stuff.

But I'll stick with the parallel universe porthole.

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Mr Downtown
Does a 1/4-inch phone plug actually "click" into place, or just fit in the hole?

Tried it again, it does not click, just fits snugly. And this is the only one I have seen in the house. BTW house is 1925 San Francisco.

I'd take it out to get a better look. Maybe test the wires first so see if they're live AC.

A better visual inspection of what's inside that white cavity just on the other side of the hole might tell you if it's some sort of plug-in connector, or maybe that's just a hole to feed a wire through, and could be a wired phone connector, or maybe a radio/TV antenna feed-through.

The number of wires and type of cable running to the receptacle might give additional clues.

Any chance it was actually a switch (rotary or pushbutton) that has lost the part sticking out the front?

Or possibly a phone wire junction box, from which a round phone base cord (without a plug) extended, through the front bushing? Actually, the more I look at the four terminals, the more I like this possibility. It also fits the baseboard location. The projecting bushing was just a form of stress relief; the base cord would be knotted behind it and then made up to the screw terminals on the four corners. SF was (I think) always a Bell town, so it will be stamped on the back with some indication such as "Bell System." Or "Property of Pacific Telephone & Telegraph."



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/2010 01:12PM by Mr Downtown.

The four screw terminals make me think it was a phone jack

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And this is the only one I have seen in the house. BTW house is 1925 San Francisco

makes me lean further to the phone jack idea.
What do the 2 stamps say? Especially the one around the jack's barrel?

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Fritz
What do the 2 stamps say? Especially the one around the jack's barrel?

Made in China

It says "arrow"

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jonny
It says "arrow"

Might be shifting back to being something electric rather than phone. This fits in with the 1925 time period. They had patents and manufactured lots of electrical light hardware.

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In 1927 the Arrow Electric Company becomes Arrow-Hart & Hegeman, Incorporated. This was shortly after the death of the principal stockholder who was also the president of the Hart & Hegeman Manufacturing Company.

[antiquesockets.com]

I find stuff like this very cool.

A 1/4" phone jack, eh? pretty neat. does it go to a mic somewhere else in your house?

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Hurts like a bastid...