Russian desktop pre-revolutionary telephone company "Geisler and Co."

An extremely rare find of our store is a desktop cabinet phone in very good and complete condition. The stamps of the famous N.K. Geisler and Co. company, as well as the original electrical circuit on the bottom, have been preserved. The case is made of steel, with minor traces of corrosion and minor loss of paint coating. The height of the phone is 220 mm. Guarantee of authenticity.

In 1874, telegraph mechanic N.K.Geisler founded a workshop in his own apartment on Pochtamtskaya St. No. 1. Its equipment consisted of two machines and three vises, and there were two workers. The workshop had the following purposes: repair of telegraph machines and Morse keys, Bell-Black telephones and installation of electric bells. The workshop began to grow in 1877. More orders were received, there were already five workers, and in 1880 there were fifteen people. The first master in the workshop was L.H.Joseph. In 1884, L.H.Joseph invented a telephone switchboard for self-calling over a single wire of an additional subscriber. This invention was accepted by the Bell-Black station in St. Petersburg at that time, and the workshop of N.K.Geisler received a large order for them. In 1890, there were twenty workers. The workshop expanded and was located in three apartments. An office of two people appeared. A new type of work appeared in the workshop: repair of roll meters (mercury indicators of the horizontal position of the vessel).

The development of work in the workshop dictated the construction of a special room and the transformation of the workshop into a factory. It began to be built in 1895 on Gryaznaya St. No. 12, from the moment it joined the American company WESTERN ELECTRIC COMPANY. In 1896, the workshop moved to a newly rebuilt factory, consisting of a four-story main building, a two-story stone wing, which housed: a nickel plating and painting room upstairs, and a copper foundry and a special engine building consisting of two steam engines and a dynamo that provided the plant with power and lighting. By this time, the number of workers had reached 100 people, 5 craftsmen and 6 employees. Since 1896, the American company Western Electric Company has officially joined the company of N.K. Geisler. The plant was called the N.K.Geisler and Co. Electromechanical Plant. The fixed capital was 500,000 rubles, one third of which belonged to the Western Electric Company, the remaining two to Geisler. Since 1901, the factory has been manufacturing: 1) Wheatstone telegraph stations, 2) inductor telephones, 3) telephone switches with hundreds or fewer for inductor calls, 4) Swiss telegraph switches, 5) fire alarms, and 6) artillery fire control devices, steering indicators, and mine transmitters, more simplified than before, for the naval department. Since 1909, the N.K.Geisler and Co. Electromechanical Plant was renamed the N.K.Geisler and Co. Electromechanical and Telegraphic Plant. The fixed capital was 750.000 rubles, part of which belonged, in addition to the Western Electric Company, to the E.ZWITUSH Telephone Factory in Charlottenburg (Berlin). However, the latter is also part of the Western Electric Company.

The growth of orders and the development of production have again created the need to expand the plant and workshops. The fulfillment of military orders yielded enormous profits, part of which could be used to expand the plant. In early 1911, construction began on a new addition building with a six-story facade and a connection to the old one. By the end of 1912, the building was completed. No further construction was carried out until 1922. The year 1911-1914 refers to: 1) the beginning of the manufacture of artillery fire control devices based on the principle of combining arrows: the first installation on the battleship Peter the Great, 2) the construction of central telephone exchanges in different cities entirely on their own, 3) composite telephone switches. The World War had an extremely favorable effect on the development of the plant. The factory was almost 90% loaded with military orders. Most of the Baltic Fleet's warships were equipped with waterproof telephony, all kinds of artillery fire control devices, and the Petrograd Telephone and Telegraph Plant. A lot of ships from the Black Sea Fleet were equipped. 1916 was the year of the factory's overcrowded workload. At that moment, about 420 different types of drive machines and 93 electric motors with a capacity of about 300 horsepower were in operation at the plant.

The Great Revolution and the Civil War, like everything else in Russia, were painfully endured by the plant. The cancellation of military orders, partly by the Kerensky government and entirely by the Soviet government, at the beginning of 1918, led to a large reduction in workers, one hundred people a month. The old workers dispersed all over Russia. After the Great October Socialist Revolution, the plant of N.K.Geisler and Co. was nationalized in May 1918. Due to the restructuring of the national economy management, all the electrical engineering plants were merged into Elektrotrest, which also included our plant under its former company. In 1919, the plant joined the association of State Electrotechnical enterprises – Elektrotrest under the name of the Geisler section.