The Siren Board

Yes folks, I am about to get my first ever fire bell! I found it in my grandpa's furnace room (where he keeps tools and things to fix up) in a box. It's probably about 6 lbs. and made of cast iron or something. It's silver, and is made by Edwards (now EST). It's got the dinger-ringer-thingy on the outside of the bell. The wires are still there, though a little rusty. Does anyone know what a bell like this is worth?

From what I hear, if the ringer-dinger-thingy (you misspelled it) is on the outside it's pretty rare. I've never seen one of those in person except for in cartoons and such.

Seems to me, though, that a picture would be helpful!

Actually, I don't think that there is a standardized spelling for ringer-dinger-thingy. Most bells made before the 1950's had the coils and striker on the outside of the gong, and some companies still make them. All the exterior bells on my old elementary school (built in 1941) were like this. As a musician, what I like about those old bells is that they don't all sound the same musical note that most new bells sound.

Just to be knit-picky, it's spelled ringer-dinger-thingy, not dinger-ringer-thingy.

Why would all those bells sound different? No uniform production line (which would result in different imperfections)? Different sizes?

Clapper?

Clapper.

Daniel wrote:Most bells made before the 1950's had the coils and striker on the outside of the gong...

What do you mean by "coils", electrical (motor) coils? Mine are enclosed in the metal box under the bell itself.

By "coils," he means electric wires that cause a magnet to move and hit the gong with the striker when the wires are energized.

Most electric bells dating from the 1850's onward have one or two electromagnets and an interruptor. When power is applied, the magnets pull the clapper toward themselves. Just as the ball or tip of the clapper strikes the gong, the interruptor (a contact attached to the clapper) breaks the circuit and the clapper retracts. The interruptor closes again and the cycle repeats at a very high speed. Older bells like yours have a clapper shaped like an arm with a ball or weighted tip. Newer bells with the mechanism under the dome have a solenoid with the interrruptor behind it that works the same way. Some of the newest bells have an electronic driver that pulses a standard solenoid, but these always sound a little slow compared with the traditional type.