It’s been a while since I posted anything new, but I definitely still have been collecting. My collection, once 3 smoke alarms around 10 years ago, has now amassed to a few hundred devices and at least a dozen panels. I’m actually planning to move my collection to a storage facility temporarily, until I finally get a place of my own to display it all and make a ton of more vids (although hasn’t stopped me from trying to do some at the moment). Anyways, here is a few pictures of just some of the new additions of my collection.
A very old IBM 4246-2 fire panel! I bought this off of a guy who took it out of a very small community center far north of my city. I haven’t even tried to wire up the panel, as I honestly have no clue on what to do, but I tested both horns and they work well.
Just a pic of where some of my collection is at the moment, sitting in my basement.
Finally, I got a full Edwards 6500 with cabinet and everything! I was able to take this off a job site at a building we service (replaced by another company). I asked the manager for it and he was like ‘sure go ahead, now I don’t gotta lug the thing to the dumpster!’ Funny enough, I was the last technician to perform an annual on the old system. I cleaned it up a lot more after the pic was taken, it was very dirty!
A couple of Edwards 333-D bells I bought off of Ebay, as single stroke bells are my favourite, I grew up listening to these a lot.
I am absolutely jealous of that 6500. What an amazing find! I’m glad you were able to save that panel from the dumpster. It must weigh a ton, given the size of the cabinet.
I love the IBM panel and horns. I find it interesting that the tag on the horns reads “Toronto”; I have a Canadian IBM 4030 (double-projector model), but it has the standard “New York” tag. I was also wondering about the pull station from that system: is it a coded or non-coded model?
If you ever have the opportunity to take general photos of your collection shelves, I’d love to see them. It looks like you have some fantastic devices hiding in there.
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Sorry for the late reply, but yes I was very lucky indeed. Had I not had that service call that day, that panel would have been trashed. It’s definitely a heavy cabinet, but the whole thing comes in 4 parts which is nice (backbox, actual panel on a metal mount that actually slides out the panel, the big metal cover with the zones and writing, and then the door itself).
I’m surprised, most, if not, all IBM devices I see usually have the Toronto, ON tag on it. The pull station is non-coded, which I was surprised cause its very big. Also I will post them here below this post.
I will mention, this definitely won’t be the final way my collection is displayed. As we have everything downstairs right now while we renovate the house bit by bit, my collection is everywhere. My main goal is to get it all into a storage unit soon, so I can re-organize, and reduce my collection, IE getting rid of duplicates or devices I no longer want.
I also need a storage unit, as I also have my other personal project of saving old alarms from defunct or old buildings. So far I have 1 building I can most likely preserve everything, and I am eying a few others in my city, like a couple old psychiatric hospitals with some very rare Edwards systems left behind, and some old schools, and even a factory behind my house, which I found out had a 6500 in it.
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Wow you have a lot of devices
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Thank you! I even have a bit more now lol, I actually moved the vast majority of my collection to a storage unit.
that is a really cool collection
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Wow, you have a amazing collection!
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You should definitely donate your collection to various fire museums!
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Thank you to all for the replies! I have 2 weeks off so I’m hoping to try and make some videos and what not for my items.
As for the museum stuff, I actually plan to open up my own museum and have my own devices in it. At the moment, there really isn’t a fire museum around me that focuses on these things. So I eventually hope to open one and basically display my entire collection.
you could try donating some of your collection to the fire museums in the US
Why do you always say that?
Well you always say that when someone show cases a vintage alarm on here
well, yeah, because what if the collector loses interest or dies? A lot of that rare stuff is usually discarded. I always want to see the old fire alarms preserved in museums. can you delete your previous posts?
Rarely will an enthusiast die, there are not to many of us around, so I am not sure that is a large concern. I would say the rare stuff is something to keep, until you don’t want it or have another reason to donate it. What “fire” museums are you referring too? I would be interested in taking a visit.
(history of fire safety/departments) there’s the fire museum network which some enthusiasts/collectors are members of. You should look it up. There’s a fire museum up in Cleveland and another one in Medina (Ohio), which are the closest ones to where I live (Akron).
Most likely when an enthusiast dies. Their parents or their significant other will auction off the collection
take BlueCFL for example, he was an active firefighter and died in the line of duty. I believe his collection was auctioned off or donated to fire museums.
I wish I was into alarms back when his collection was being auctioned. I thought he died of a disease
I am interested in alarms, but I don’t have any due to space concerns. I think he may have died from a disease but I’m not sure.
