Northern Electric Dial Phone

A Northern Electric number 4H dial. This dial was manufactured in the second quarter of 1937 and has the rich "clickity-clack" sound that is associated with this model. Adding to the collectibility of this dial is original 149a alphanumeric dial plate with red and black letters.

To really understand how Northern Telecom got started, you have to go back to Scottish-born inventor Alexander Graham Bell himself, who invented the telephone in 1874 at his parent's home in Brantford, Ontario. Bell patented his new invention in the United States in 1876, and in Canada in 1877, where 75 percent of the Canadian telephone patent was assigned to his father, Melville.

Within two years, Melville Bell had sold his share of the Canadian Bell patent to National Bell, the predecessor of AT&T. And in 1880, The Bell Telephone Company of Canada was formed. The Manufacturing Branch flourished and, in 1895, was incorporated as a separate company, called Northern Electric and Manufacturing Company Limited.