Telephones for Sale by Sears Roebuck

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Victorian phone box with receiver and bells visible. Snapshot taken in a museum by Kristin Holt.

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Introduced at Centennial Exposition: Telephones

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Kristin Holt | Telephones for Sale by Sears Roebuck. Vintage Image: Centennial map chromatic view, courtesy of West Philadelphia Collaborative History.

1876 Centennial Exposition map chromatic view. Courtesy of West Philadelphia Collaborative History.

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The Centennial Exposition was a huge to-do, held in Philadelphia at the United States’ Centennial Celebration in 1876.

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Mass-produced products and new inventions were on display at the 1876 World Fair, many found within the walls of Machinery hall. Some of the main inventions on display included sewing machines, typewriters, stoves, lanterns and guns, plus horse-drawn wagons, carriages and agricultural equipment.

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…The exposition also featured many well-known items of today such as; Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephone which was set up on opposite ends of Machinery Hall to demonstrate the transfer of human voice through wires, the Automatic telegraph system and electric pen by Thomas Edison… [source]

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Kristin Holt | Telephones for Sale by Sears Roebuck. Quote from Collectors Weekly. "The telephone was introduced by Alexander Graham Bell at a world's fair, the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The first commercial telephone followed shortly thereafter in 1877. Resembling a wood box camera, these camera or box phones, as they were variously called, lacked separate receivers and transmitters."

Quote source: Collectors Weekly

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Use of the word “telephone“, historically, looks like this:

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Kristin Holt | Telephones for Sale by Sears Roebuck. Use of the word "telephone", per Google search

“Telephone”, Use over time, Google.

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Use of the word “phone“, historically:

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Kristin Holt | Telephones for Sale by Sears Roebuck. Use of the word "phone", per Google search.

“Phone”, Use over time, per Google.

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Historic Silver City’s Telephones

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Silver City, Idaho is now a ghost town, but once a thriving mining city in south-western Idaho.

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The settlement grew quickly and was soon considered one of the major cities in Idaho Territory. aThe first daily newspaper and telegraph office in Idaho Territory were established in Silver City. The town was also among the first places in present-day Idaho to receive electric and telephone service. [source]

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Antique telephone on the wall of Idaho Hotel, check-in area.

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Telephones in the Sears, Roebuck & Co. Catalogue: 1897 and 1898

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In 1897 and 1898 editions of the Sears, Roebuck & Co. Catalogue, the same category header for “TELEPHONES” was printed. Curiously enough, this preface references developments in technology “in the past year” but the text wasn’t updated in 1898.

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Kristin Holt | Telephones for Sale by Sears Roebuck. Header: Telephones in the Sears, Roebuck and Co. Catalogue, 1897.

Header of Telephone Section of Sears, Roebuck, & Co., 1897 (catalog no. 104).

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Kristin Holt | Telephones for Sale by Sears Roebuck. Telephone Header Sears Catalog of 1898 (catalog no. 107).

Telephone Header in Sears, Roebuck, & Co., Consumer’s Guide 1898 (catalog no. 107).

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The “coffin” style telephone (so named because of the long, box-like appearance) decreased in price a whopping (almost) $3.00 in the one year between ’97 and ’98. Note that the item number changed, but the details of the telephone itself remained constant. While offered in ’97 for an “each” price of $13.50, by ’98, the “each” price had dropped to $10.70 and a remarkable discount of $1.80 for the “pair” at $19.60.

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Kristin Holt Telephones for Sale by Sears Roebuck. No. 6810 Sears Telephone offered in the Sears, Roebuck and Co. Catalogue of 1897 (No 104).

Improved long distance batter telephone: Item no. 6810 in Sears, Roebuck, & Co. catalog no. 104, 1897.

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Kristin Holt | Telephones for Sale by Sears Roebuck. Item No. 18232 Improved Long Distance Battery Telephone of the Regular Bell Telephone. Offered in the Sears 1897 catalog (No. 107).

The Improved Long Distance Battery Telephone of the Regular Bell Telephone. Item No. 18232 in Sears, Roebuck & Co. Catalogue no. 107, of 1898.

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Kristin Holt | Telephones for Sale by Sears Roebuck. No. 6311 for wall and desk. Offered by Sears, Roebuck and Co. 1897.

Desk ‘phone: Item No. 6311 for wall and desk phones by Sears, Roebuck, & Co., catalogue #104, year 1897.

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Note that item No. 6312 is referenced as a “Desk ‘phone” (with the apostrophe indicating the dropped letters/syllable). It’s safe to say the shortened term “phone” appeared in the American use of the English language in or reasonably before 1897. See Google search, near the beginning of this article, with a “frequency of use” graph for both “telephone” and “phone”.

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Kristin Holt | Kristin Holt | Telephones for Sale by Sears Roebuck. Improved Long Distance telephone with transmitter and receiver. Sears, Roebuck and Co Catalogue No. 107, 1898.

Improved telephone, and transmitter. Sears, Roebuck & Co. Catalogue no. 107, year 1898.

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Kristin Holt | Telephones for Sale by Sears Roebuck. Phone transmitter and switches offered in the Sears, Roebuck and Co. Catalogue, 1897.

Phone transmitter and switches for sale in the Sears, Roebuck & Co. catalogue (no. 104) in year 1897.

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Kristin Holt | Telephones for Sale by Sears Roebuck. Receivers for telephones Sears, Roebuck and Co., 1898.

Receiver for sale, item No. 18235 in the 1898 Sears, Roebuck, & Co. catalogue (No. 107)

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Kristin Holt | Telephones for Sale by Sears Roebuck. Wire for telephones Sears, Roebuck and Co., 1898.

Wire for telephones for sale in the Sears, Roebuck & Co. Catalogue (no. 107) year 1898.

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1902 Sears, Roebuck, & Co. : Without Telephones

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For some reason I’ve not yet found, Sears, Roebuck and Co. ceased selling telephones after the 1898 catalog and prior to the 1902 catalogue (no. 111). In 1902 absolutely no telephones were available in the “Wish Book.”

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