American Bell Candlestick Telephone. Property of the American Bell Telephone Company. Patented in USA November 1910. Rotary dial. Brass top with copper base.

American Bell Candlestick Telephone. Property of the American Bell Telephone Company. Patented in USA November 1910. Rotary dial. Brass top with copper base.

Some parts were changed so that it can be used with analog telephone lines.

Size: 31 cm L

The Bell Telephone Company, a common-law corporation, was founded in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 9, 1877, by Alexander Graham Bell's father-in-law, Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who also helped found a sister company, the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company. The Bell Telephone Company was founded thanks to the possession of potentially valuable patents, most notably the master patent for Bell's telephone, No. 174465.

Alexander Graham Bell's fiancée, Mabel Hubbard, was the indirect source of the Bell Telephone Company's early commercial success following the invention of the telephone. The 1876 United States Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia brought international attention to Bell's newly invented telephone. The exhibition judges, Emperor Pedro II of the Brazilian Empire and the eminent British physicist William Thomson (Lord Kelvin), recommended his device to the Electrical Prize Committee, which awarded Bell the gold medal for Electrical Equipment, contributing to his international fame. Bell also won a second gold medal for his additional exhibit at the exhibition, Visible Speech, developed earlier by his equally famous father, Alexander Melville Bell.