#ringer box

My antique find from the Oklahoma road trip last weekend. It's an oak ringer box. In the early days of telephones many phones did not have ringers built into them. There was no place to fit big bells and the electrical apparatus to make them work in a small candlestick phone, for instance. The bell set was a separate piece.

This one was made by Stromberg Carlson Company, a major player in the growing telephone business back in the day.