[Milsurplus] Key Question CMI-26003A

[Mike Morrow]

Meir wrote:

>BTW Bunnell still has NOS, in the box keys of that type of their
>manufacture, selling them for $85...

The J. H. Bunnell web site is very interesting for the history of Morse operation, especially by wire:

http://jhbunnell.com/

This company is, of course, very famous in our collecting circle as one of the manufacturers of that main-stay of WWII US Army Signal Corps communications, the SCR-178.  :-)

It was founded in 1878, and for many decades it was the principal equipment supplier to the Western Union wire telegraph system.  They are currently offering (for about $550!) a subminiature key and sounder set at:

http://jhbunnell.com/specialoffer.shtml

For anyone interested in the history of the wire telegraph in the US from before 1832 to the final demise of the Western Union telegraph system in the late 1980s, there is the excellent 1993 book "The Telegraph" written by Lewis Coe, a former wire telegraph operator.  The book was republished in paperback in 2002.

The book mentions that miniature key/sounder sets such as that shown above were often presented as retirement gifts to outgoing operators.

Mike / KK5F