Queen Mary GECoPhone
I have two of the very rare Queen Mary GECoPhone. Both in very collectible condition so I will be offering one for sale.
In all the pics, it is the one that is the whiter of the two. Because the light plays tricks with colour and I didn't want to fiddle with it in the picture editor, I included a bottle of full cream milk in a couple of pics so that you can better gauge the colour.
I wanted to show the fine stress fractures in both phones and that they look like almost exact duplicates - this to me indicates that the genuine ones are probably almost all like that. It was probably a fault in the manufacturing heat and pressure when the Bakelite parts were moulded.
Whilst the phone is almost exactly the same as other GECoPhones that I’ve seen, it does have some unusual characteristics –
1. The receiver diaphragm is marked as Baldwin’s Limited (manufacturer)
2. The transmitter insert is quite a different "orange" shade to what I’ve seen before.
3. The cradle is a different shape, reaching closer to the dummy dial. There is a soft spring stretched around the point where the Bakelite body meets the cradle – it looks like it may be intended to keep out vermin.
See also .pdf Queen Mary GECoPhone
