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Victorian Speaking Tube: Deja Vu

Victorian Speaking Tube: Deja Vu published on 53 Comments on Victorian Speaking Tube: Deja Vu

speaking-tube.jpg

The following is a post from April which I’m bumping up to the front page. Previously, I had just cut and pasted a reader’s question. Now that there are answers (see comments), I must get the word out. Apparently, there are some lost souls wandering the earth in search of Victorian speaking tube parts. They won’t rest until they get their hands on them.

A reader sent the following email. I haven’t got a clue. Anyone?

“My wife and I have a Victorian house that was built in 1895 and for the past two years we’ve been in the process of rehabbing it. During the course of demo in the kitchen we found the remnants of the old speaking tube system that ran from the kitchen up to the 2nd floor hall. The tubes were intact but the mouthpiece openings had been patched over and the mouthpieces were nowhere to be found.

I have looked far and wide trying to locate some replacement mouthpieces and have come up empty-handed. We were wondering if you know of any companies and/or salvage yards that might possess parts for our system? Your help would be greatly appreciated.

I’ve included a pic of what I believe was originally installed in my house. The mouth piece has no electric parts. It operates by means of using the thumb to rotate the lever (in order to move the disc out of the way) and then blowing into the tube. The other end also has a disc that acts as a whistle to alert the person on the other end that someone wishes to speak on the “intercom”. I think that the mouthpieces were made out of nickel-plated brass and/or porcelain.”

53 Comments

Wow. This is the first time in our search for information about the elusive speaking tubes that any internet searches have revealed anything close to what we were looking for. We purchased a home in Ohio built 1901. We too have the speaking tube system depicted in the print ad attached to your inquiry. However, we have an actual speaking tube – pictured in the ad. It’s exactly like the one pictured and we think its made of nickel plated tin. It is in perfect working condition, however, we have only one and are therefore on the search ourselves for a mate. We are looking into having someone make one for us. Let us know if you are interested and if we find someone to make it, we’ll let you know. If you happen to find a source, please let me know as well.

Thanks,

JMOster

I am looking for 2 tube2 also. I called House of Antique Hardware and they suggested two sites but no luck so far. I wonder if someone could build them. The original equipment is still in our walls (the house was built in 1913) but when my parents did some re-modeling the tubes got lost. I am restoring some of the original push button switches and and want to put the tubes back in place also. So please let me know of any sources.

Thanks,
nmichaud

Dear Nadja, I know this must be an old posting. My wife and I purchased a 7,000 sq ft 24 room mansion in Central NY Finger Lakes region. Our house has over 25 speaking tubes that go from the the main floor up to the 4th floor. All of our speaking tunes are in perfect working condition. We have used them frequently when our children were small. They are designed to blow into the tube to produce a whistle sound. They amaze me to the absolute clarity of sound. For a so called primitive system they are quite sensitive. If you put your ear to the tune you could almost hear a pin drop. Our ear, speaking parts are made of white porceline. The inner parts are metal with a small hole in the Middle with a little flipper to open the inner part to talk. I did not realize the rarity of these units until I started researching them for fun. As an idea on how to accurately reproduce them is to make a plaster casting st a local ceramic shop. They could reproduce they by firing clay ang using a white glaze. I hope this is useful to your search. Sincerely, Marc DeAngelis. Please feel free to contact me .

Glad to see others like us! We have a 1904 Victorian in Oklahoma and there is a speaking tube from the kitchen to the master bedroom. We also need some more of the mouthpiece units. Ours is exactly like the one in the ad. Please let us know if you find anyone who has them or can reproduce them! Thanks again, Kive

So, it looks like others are looking for the mouth pieces. I will be meeting with a jewelry maker to see if she can reproduce the original for a reasonable sum. If you need to replace a section of the lockseam tube, we found that shower curtain rod fits perfectly if you bell out the end a bit. It’s cheap too. Good luck. Will let you know on the reproduction possibility.

Met with the jeweler today and she is interested in giving it a go. The easiest/cheapest way to make reproductions is out of brass sheet and/or standard brass tubing and we will need to find the whistle mechanism (as opposed to making it). There is a lot of hand work involved, soldering etc. The lever and spring should be available or easily fabricated. I think the whistle mechanism is similar to what is on the whistling tea kettles and perhaps this is available in bulk but i don’t know for sure. I plan on taking the prototype/original and making some exploded,detailed prints but this could be expensive and the original is tin, I think nickel plated. The original is also lockseamed, meaning it was made out of flat stock, soldered lengthwise as opposed to standard tubing. I am told that nobody makes stuff out of tin anymore and there is a place here in Ohio that will nickel plate brass. If I could reproduce the original out of brass or nickel plated brass, what do you folks think is a fair price? Modern tube vs. soldered flat stock??? I’m thinking that I will have one made either way but it would get increasingly cheaper as the number goes up. Should we bring back the speaking tube? Give me some feedback.

Yes. More and more people are restoring old homes. I just ordered some old-fashioned push-button light switches and the matching wall plates, so speaking tubes comes next. I would be interested in buying two tubes. Someone suggested to me that ship suppliers might have these also. Apparently they were used on ships before telephones and electronics. Let us know when and if you get some prides. I am in Indianapolis.

OK. The jewelry maker is a no go. However, I’ve got what I beleive is a better source who will consider making these. I’m willing to start the process by providing drawings, measurements, etc. I am reluctant, since I have just one, to send my only one to the source for reproduction. Do any of you have more than one that you might be willing to donate to the common cause? If not, I’ll go forward with the drawing and see what we can do. I will need some feedback as to how many each of you would like and in what material (mine is nickel plated tin, which is what I would ask the source to make). I have no idea (emphasize) about the cost, but it sems to me that if I let him know the total of what I need, he might be more flexible with the price. Well, what do you say out there?

Jody

John, The backing plate or trim piece was usually made on site by the carpenter. As for an instruction card, there weren’t any. It is pretty plain to see that if the speaking tube whistled then someone on the other end wanted to be heard. The little trigger would move the whistle disc out of the way so the sender and the sendie person could communicate.
I was the one who had the illustration at the beginning of this thread. I am still trying to locate 2 of these illusive pieces of hardware. I’m very interested in the fabricate new ones idea.
Vince

I have three tubes in my 1899 NYC brownstone exactly like the above illustration. The threee mouthpieces in the kitchen are intact and functioning but the three on the upper floors are missing. I would be happy to buy or participate in having some made.

Edward

I wonder if anyone has access to the information at the Smithsonian or at the Maritime Museum. It seems to me that either of those might have samples or plans or something about these tubes. Didn’t old ships pre-electricity use similar tubes? Again if someone can get tubes made I want to buy 2. Thanks

Count me in! We have a 1931 2-family house that required new walls after a frozen pipe water disaster. Inside the walls we found the tin pipe leading to the basement and a hole at the front door. We hope to find the connecting pipe in the basement ceiling. A neighbor gave us his speaking tube. A bit bent, but seems otherwise to be in good condition. But we have nothing for the other end and would like it. If no-one has fabricated this yet, I have have connections at the university to someone who could. lonniechu@gmail.com

I own an 1892 Victorian house in upstate NY. I have four of these speaking tubes in my house. One at the front door and one in the kitchen which lead to two tubes on the second floor hallway.

Only one was missing in the kitchen when I bought the house. A visit to the local salvage yard and now both sets function perfect. The best place to find them is in architectural salvage yards or occasionally one will come up for sale on EBay.

We need 2 like displayed in the left hand picture above. We have looked everywhere(salvage yards, antique stores, resoration hardward web sites, EBay). No luck.

I’ll would love to join in the production of these. Let’s do it!

I’m so happy to have found this site! For research on my second novel, could someone who has used a speaking tube kindly try to describe the quality of the sound when you are listening from the kitchen? (For example: is it distant? Is there hissing? Crackling?) Anything at all would be enormously helpful. Thanks.

I am the one who started this thread in May of 2008 and I regretfully am still on my quest. Since 2008 I have attained 2 different speaking tube mouthpieces. One is very similar to the original photo that I put up in 2008 and the other is a little more ornate because it is made out of brass. I would be fine with either accept for the need for a twin mouthpiece for each that I have. I have also looked into having new mouthpieces made to fit into the old tin pipe. I wasn’t too thrilled with the firm that I was going to contract to do the work for me. My idea was to mass produce about 100 mouthpieces in order to both keep the cost per piece down and to meet the high demand for these elusive speaking tube parts. I will now look to a new vendor for manufacturing and maybe the next time you type “Speaking Tube” into a search engine you will be directed to my site where the new mouthpieces will be for sale.

We bought an old 1904 Craftsman and had a tube in one bedroom upstairs we never knew where it went. Its not as ornate as this – more of just a brass cone embedded in the plaster. Just like everyone else, during a kitchen remodel we found the other ends. we have 1 to that bedroom, and 1 to our finished attic, and if you just yell really loud you can hear and talk. I’m interested in 3 mouthpieces, if we can get this going. Email me any time at jamie@jamiemathy.com Thanks!

I have a pair of speaking tube mouth pieces, they came from the home of Sir Harry Llewellyn near Abergavenny in Monmouthshire, so I was informed at the time of purchase.
They appear to be made of Ivory (could possibly be bone), they still have the remains of the lead tube attached to the old brass 45 angled sockets.
They are in remarkably good condition, considering their age.
Both have their safety chains connected between mouth piece and whistle, unfortunately one is missing
the finial off the end of one plunger.
I can’t be positive of the information on their background, although, why would it be fabricated?

Sir Harry Llewellyn lived near Abergavenny in A younger son, he only inherited the baronetcy on the death of his brother in 1978. His younger brother Sir David Llewellyn was a Conservative politician.
[edit]Cambridge University and the army

Llewellyn was educated at Oundle School and at Trinity College, Cambridge, before going into the army.
[edit]Early career

During World War II he saw action in Italy and after D Day in Normandy and served as a liaison officer to Field Marshal Montgomery, eventually rising to the rank of Colonel in the British Army.
[edit] Monmouthshire. In 1990 he was inducted into the Welsh Sports Hall of Fame.
He was married to Christine Saumarez, a daughter of the 5th Baron de Saumarez.

He achieved some success as a show-jumping champion during the 1930s, and competed in the Grand National steeplechase, coming second in 1936.
[edit]World War II

After the war he concentrated on show jumping, buying Foxhunter in 1947 after a long search. The duo were part of the British team that won a bronze medal in the team event at the 1948 Summer Olympics, winning the bronze medal. They captured the public imagination for their role in winning Great Britain’s only gold medal at the 1952 Summer Olympics, in the team jumping equestrian event.[1]
Foxhunter and Llewellyn won 78 international competitions during their joint career. Llewellyn later served widely in the administration of British show jumping, and was knighted in 1977 before inheriting the Llewellyn Baronetcy upon the death of his brother.[1] His business activities, following the nationalisation of the coal industry in 1947, included interests in brewing and television. Following the 1952 Olympic win he set up a chain of cafes called Foxhunter.[2]
After Sir Harry’s death, his ashes were scattered near Foxhunter’s grave and memorial on the Blorenge mountain above Abergavenny.[2]

Their sons, Dai and Roddy, became well-known media personalities from the 1960s onwards, the former because of highly publicized relationships with Tessa Dahl and Orson Welles’s daughter Beatrice, and the latter because of an eight-year affair with Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon.

I am a docent at a victorian house museum we have one downstairs in tact but the upstairs mouth piece is missing. I am thinking it might be possible to have a foundry do a cast? not sure if that is a thought anyone has tried… but in the past I did a cast and it cost us $35 for the cast this was for a rosette for the back of a door. they did an amazing job… not sure if this would work… any other ideas let me know.

If someone has has a mouthpiece in decent shape (esp, a version without the whistle lever, since that adds complexity), it might be easy to do a 3D scan of the item to create an STL file. Then the STL could be posted and folks could download it (ideally for free, else for a nominal charge) and print it using a 3D printer. Besides white and black, 3D printers can now produce metallic colored items – seems like a perfect application for a 3D printer: a small, limited availability part that is demand by many homeowners.

If anyone can provide this, Thanks in Advance! If you want to do this but don’t have a clue on how to do a 3D scan, contact me.

Dan

The house in which we lived when I was in high school had these. It was so cool. The house had been contructed as a duplex by two ladies who were best friends and professors at the University of Alabama. My parents renovated and made it into a single family home. There were speaking tubes that went from each of the two rear bedrooms to the kitchen(s) below, and to each other. They had the covers that had the whistle holes, but though we used the speaking tubes regularly, we didn’t know about the whistle! If I ever go back to Tuscaloosa, I may knock on the door of the family who lives there.

I found this. Maybe it will help you all: http://www.rarepartsforrarecars.com/slideshow13.html#5

Looking for (4) with porcelain mouthpiece and indicator on speaking tube.
My sister and I had them in our home our whole lives.
Through an unfortunate event all were stolen from the house.
Many years later (10)we are still looking for them. If anyone has one that we may replicate or knows of someone who’s done this please let us know.

I also have 2 of these Victorian speaking tubes, completely in tact! One goes to the basement up to the hall on the main floor and one from the parlor to the upstairs bedroom (or what would have been an upper parlor maybe). My house was built in 1880.
Mine are completely brass!
I don’t know how to post a picture here, but if you click on my fb link, you will see a picture: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Win-High-Street-Victorian-Bed-Breakfast/483007321857688

I have also been looking, since 1986, for a metal, nickel plated end. My system is complete except for the one end, and in place. Mine runs from the dining room to the man’s bedroom, which was almost a straight run with only about a 4′ dogleg. I am refinishing the Dining room wall and would like to install the second end prior to completion. Our Ohio home was built around 1895-99, and is a 3,000 sq. ft. brick type. Originally had gas lighting. If I cannot find a replacement soon, “X” will mark the spot!

Hi all!
I have just designed some WHISTLING SPEAKING TUBES based on a speaking tube from an 1880 Victorian home– a home that had a dedicated door bell button beside the speaking tube. Although this unit never came with a whistle, I used Victorian hardware for my inspiration to create a whistle in its lid. I invite you to see my Facebook page under MasterMetalMan / MasterMetalMan.com
Thanks,
Dwight Bennett

We just discovered that our 1912 Bungalow has speaking tubes also. while remodelling the kitchen we found an odd tin tube with an elbow that appeared to go upstairs and also a tube to the basement. In the attic we say also that the tubes went from the second floor master bedroom to the kitchen (and maybe basement?). The tubes have been cut in the attic but could be restored. Any mouthpieces seem to be missing completely, but I will go to the basement to investigate if there is one there. We too would be interested in finding reproductions or originals of that period. This is all to fascinating to us. We will leave the tube exposed in the wall as we finish off the kitchen in hopes of finding a mouthpiece. A bit of history exposed is a good thing!

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