Brass Hardware Door Bell Levers please help identify

[stonewallmaster]

Can someone please help me identify.


I believe this piece of hardware belongs to a doorbell and is the lever part, not sure though.  Looked interesting, bought a old trunk filled with antique stuff and this was in there. It also comes apart, I checked for engravings and marks but have not been able to find any.  Checkout pics for more detailed observation.

[Dean Perdue]

Whatever it is it sure is cool.I love that type of styling and quality.
Does it look like there were electric parts in it at one time.
At first glance I thought it was a old speak easy or easy speak.Could be wrong though

[railman44]

Looked doorbell to me at first but there's no way I can see to secure it to the exterior part of the door. 

[talesofthesevenseas]

Yes I believe you have a doorbell handle there. I saw one very similar on Craigslist recently. Here is another very similar one and you can see parts that yours is missing. Looks like yours is missing the bell. The one shown below carries a patent date of 1867. Yours looks pretty darn similar:



Source page:
http://byemylife.com/id26.html

[fancypants]

I'm with 7c's on this one .

Lever handle assembly for a ringy-dinger .

I like the looks of your item , stonewallmstr .

[Dean Perdue]

Looks like you got it TOT7S.
How did these things work? Were they spring loaded?
Sure looks like the type of thing that would last a long time.

[talesofthesevenseas]

I would guess that it might work like a bicycle bell, but I don't know, it is just a guess. Or perhaps you just lift pull the handle up and drop or strike it against the bell. I've never used one. It's very cool, maybe a replacement bell could be found and it could be made to work again.

[railman44]

Tales, if you look closely at your picture, holes are tapped for securing the exterior crank on to the door.  Not so with our example in question.  Obviously, in our pictured example, the outer shell with the crank secures to some mechanism inside (the door??) to hide the the existing screw holes in the exterior inner plate.  Also if you look closely, the hole in the door would have to be huge and the turning of the crank would spin something that could never fit or work in a normal bell houseing meant for a doorbell.  Never saw an example that did that.  This one has me stumped.    

[fancypants]

There were many designs of mechanical doorbell actuators : lever , twist/crank , pull , push , chain , cable (& rope) .

This one is a 'trip lever' or 'trip cam' type , with an internal escusion (missing) used for securing the exterior mechanism through a door with threaded machine screws [and sometimes screw/nut combo too] (much like what you'd see in a modern-day exterior deadbolt mounting) .

It was assembled by first mounting the actuator assembly , then the striker assembly , and finally the bell ; all of the mounting hardware would be concealed by the bell itself , making a very clean-looking installation .

I'm not sure if yours was/could be adapted for through-the-wall mounting (I doubt it ) .

Nice c1860-1880 unit , stonewallmaster .

[cogar]

I thought I recognized that thingy, a similar one was posted herein months ago. And I think it was decided that it could be used as either a door bell or a "call bell" for calling a butler, maid, cook or servant to the master's or mistress’s need .... or to answer the door.

It is used for “ringing” a jing-a-ling bell, not a ding-dong bell.

The unit is mounted on a wall and a wire or cord is attached to the hole in the lever with the square hole in it and the other end of the wire or cord is connected to a jing-a-ling bell somewhere in the house where the servants can hear it. The lever can only rotate back n’ forth about 160 degrees but that is enough to ring the bell.

[stonewallmaster]

Excellent News, I thank you all for your replies and finally helping figure this thing out.

[KC]

By golly cogar...I was sitting here looking at this post again trying to remember where I saw something of this nature within the past 6 months...and you said it!

Great job all!

Ain't life grand?!

[talesofthesevenseas]

Interesting info all, thanks for all the details. Learned a lot on this one!

On the subject of call bells, I mentioned before that I used to work at the Winchester Mystery House. They had an old call box there with little cards that would drop down into a window, showing the servants what room the mistress of the house was in. Here is the one from WMH. (Sorry about the pink hippo in the photo! it was one of those travel logs where a toy visits famous places!)