The 2007 conference turned out to be the most interesting year ever for
telegraph collectors due to the unprecedented number of high quality land-line
instruments that showed up on display for sale in the flea market.
PHIL WEINGARTEN'S FABULOUS FAKES SEMINAR:
I started out by showing some of Jim Kreuzer's photos of Phil and his
collection and then I moved on into a discussion of Phil's fake telegraph
keys. I showed his
fake Massey spark key. I also had placed one of these Massey keys on
display at the front of the room for people to see after the seminar.
Then I showed the "One-of-a-Kind"
presentation stand with a fake Marconi CM-425 spark key mounted on
top.
I told the story of the Spark Key collector who had bought this piece from
Phil with the understanding that it was an original one-of-a-kind item; only
to find many years later that another key collector also had an identical Phil
Weingarten "One-of-a-Kind" presentation key. Amazingly, during the seminar
audience participation, I found out that three other collectors had bought
this presentation key from Phil so it is clear that there are now 5 known
"One-of-a-Kind" presentation pieces.
I found this to be a very interesting philosophical insight into the world of
key collecting and key collectors. It seems to indicate that collectors keep
their collections rather private and other collectors do not even know what
keys they have in their collections. I was surprised to learn this because I
have spent most of my time making my collection available to everyone on the
internet and I assumed that other collectors would like to show their keys to
fellow collectors. Now that I think of it, however, I have only seen a very
few collections in person.
I continued by showing a photo of a
fake SE-59 key that Phil had made.
He had made this key by cutting the small key out of a WW-1 buzzer set and
remounting it and engraving a label for it. The collector was so excited to
have bought this never-before-seen key that he did not notice that it was the
familiar key from the WW-1 buzzer set. Note also the misspelling of the word
SignEl.
I concluded the telegraph key part of the seminar by showing a fake Marconi bug that Phil had tried to
sell to bug collector Gil Schlehman - K9WDY. Phil had simply engraved the
words "Marconi International Marine Communication Co." on the side of what Gil
thinks is an early version of a Japanese Swallow bug.
I went on to show and describe Phil's fake deForest Audion tubes and his fake
Marconi Coherers.
Then I introduced Derk Rouwhorst who had bought this
fake Fleming Marconi Oscillaton
Valve from Phil in 1996 for $ 750. Phil had claimed it was
an original and even showed Derk a letter of authenticity from tube collector
Gerald Tyne. Derk was so angry about finding out that his tube was a fake that
he came all the way from Holland to attend the seminar and show the fake tube.
He did not want that worthless fake in his collection any longer.
I told him that it was probably not "worthless" and that he should put it in
the AWA Auction. Two days later, Derk put his fake Fleming Valve in the
auction where it stimulated very frantic bidding by three colletors and where
it was finally sold for... believe it or not... $ 1950.00. Derk was not
quite as unhappy after that sale as
shown in this photo of him !
It is amazing to me that Phil's fakes have become so valuable after his death
in 1997. I wonder what kind of prices his telegraph keys would bring at
auction.
THE FLEA MARKET:
As the sun brightened the sky, more rare instruments began appearing
from vehicles. I saw two more weight-driven registers come out of hiding.
One of these registers
had a Western Electric tag
that said: MUSEUM. This indicated that it had originally been in the
Western Electric Museum Collection that had been disassembled many years
ago.
Another magnificent Charles T and J.N. CHESTER weight driven register was
brought to the flea market by a clock collector. The entire register
was in pieces but it was a
particularly unusual design that I had not seen before.
Here is another view of the Chester register.
The owner was trying to determine what kind of base it should have been
mounted on and what pieces were missing. He intends to eventually sell it for
about $10,000.
A lovely very early
Key & Sounder set showed up. I did not recognize the set
but found that the tops of the upright posts on the sounder were tapered in a
form that I had never seen before.
Here is another view of the set. Although it was
not marked, the general design makes me think it may have been made by Watts.
A major part of the fun of attending a meet like this is in being able to
see very unusual sets like this and trying to identify them.
At least two beautiful Phelps Civil War Era Camelback keys changed owners as
did a British spark key. One of the Phelps keys was a particularly hard to
find William Phelps camelback key. Several other important keys were being
offered including not one but TWO Melehan Valiant fully-automatic bugs, two
spark sideswipers, and an amazing variety of other very unsual keys. Nothing
was inexpensive but at least the flea market provided oportunities to see and
buy some incredible keys.
Usually, all of the frantic buying and selling takes place early in the
morning but this year, people kept bringing amazing instruments out of their
boxes throughout the day.
Of course, I put out my
display of Engima machines alongside the telegraph
keys at my tables. It was the only place in the world where people could see
and buy all 3 major models of the Enigma. The WW-II German ARMY enigma is on
the left. The extremely rare WW-II German AIR FORCE Enigma is in the center.
The rare German Navy 4-rotor Enigma is on the right and farther to the Right
is the 10-rotor Russian Enigma codenamed FIALKA. You can just make out the US
Army M-209 cipher machine on the far left. The coded messages from this
American machine were never successfully deciphered by an enemy.
THE KEY AND TELEGRAPH SEMINAR:
Dr. Russ Kleinman - WA5Y then presented an illustrated talk on Relay Keys that
were used to key powerful spark transmitters. He presented and described many
interesting illustrations of these heavy-duty relay/key combinations and
stand-alone relays.
Next on the agenda was Gil Schlehman - K9WDY who showed and demonstrated a
very rare Bradyplex Bug. Gil has been collecting bugs for many years and his
goal has always been to own one example of every bug ever manufactured. He
had collected an amazing total of 299 different bugs when he came to the
seminar this year. This year, I was proud to be able to
formally present Gil with his 300th. Bug !
It is a tiny miniature dual-lever bug with folding feet labeled:
HOBART AUTOBUG.
THE KEY COLLECTORS DINNER AFTER THE SEMINAR:
As the conference continued, flea market activity slowed and people spent more
time in the lectures. The auction was well attended and it was interesting
to see the prices that various pieces of equipment brought.
Well, that's the story of the 2007 AWA Conference.
Internet ENIGMA Museum:
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: (Copyright (c) 2023: Prof. Tom Perera Ph. D.)
The conference started out with my 7 PM seminar on Phil Weingarten and his
Fabulous Fakes. Phil was well known to many AWA members because he had an
extraordinary collection of fine old
wireless equipment. At some point he decided to make replica telegraph
keys, early radio tubes, and even entire radios. He did not always tell
people that these creations were fakes. The seminar was devoted to
chronicling his history and peoples' experiences in dealing with him.
Reasonably good weather brought out a large crowd of collectors and before
dawn several important weight-driven registers and early keys had changed
hands. It is unusual to see even one weight-driven register being offered for
sale so this was an amazing pre-dawn treat for the collectors who saw this
taking place. I believe that at least one of these registers sold for over $
10,000. Several other collectors rushed over and offered more than that price
but the sales had already been completed. Unfortunately, it was too dark to
photograph the registers.
This year the Key & Telegraph Seminar included a very historic moment in key
collecting. After a brief introduction and acknowledgement of the
seminar's founder, Murray Willer - VE3FRX (SK), Prof. Dr. Franz Pichler gave
an illustrated lecture on the Beginnings of the Electric Telegraph in Austria.
His photographs and descriptions of those early telegraph instruments were
amazing.
A very funny thing happened After the seminar !
10 serious key collectors went out to dinner at a fine local Italian
Restaurant. We ordered drinks and appetizers and salads before the main
course. Felicia Kreuzer was eating her salad when her fork struck some kind of
solid object buried deep in her salad. She pulled away the lettuce and found a
very Large and Ornate KEY lying on her plate.
All of the Key collectors started laughing so loudly that the waitress rushed
over to see what was the matter. Felicia pointed to the KEY in her salad. The
waitress said: "Oh dear... that key fell out of the lock in the cabinet over
where I was mixing your salad". The key collectors tried to explain why it was
causing us to laugh so much. We told the waitress that we were laughing
because we were all KEY COLLECTORS... She did not understand so we tried to
explain about telegraph keys and Morse Code but she still did not understand.
She kept repeating: "I don't care if you are ...KEY COLLECTORS ! You Can't
Have that KEY !!!" That kept us laughing well into the evening...
You might want to consider joining the AWA and enjoying the quarterly AWA
Journal with its Telegraph Column by John Casale - W2NI. Visit their website
at: http://www.antiquewireless.org
I hope to see you at the 2008 conference... 73 Tom - W1TP
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