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Vintage pushbutton switches.

11K views 5 replies 4 participants last post by  JohnJ0906 
#1 ·
When you're working in a 20's, 30's, 40's "old money" home, you often come across the old pushbutton switches. When a switch goes bad, people often want the same style switch. When they're adding switches, they often want more pushbutton switches. Until recent years, you had to salvage these switches from other jobs.

Now, there are a few companies that I know of that is making reproductions of them. They didn't used to be UL approved (the repro's, that is), but now I see that some are UL approved. They are a bit pricey. I think the last one's that I sold to a customer I had to retail for about 40 or 50 bucks each.

This style of switch was most popular from the mid 20's to the mid 30's. Earlier than that, and they used the round key type switches. Much after that, and they used traditional toggles.

Here's a link to some places that sell them:

http://www.vintagehardware.com/catalog/home.php?cat=9

http://www.classicaccents.net/cgi-b...+Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=CAI&Category_Code=PBS
 
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#4 ·
Did a job in a 1908 house that was being reconverted from 12 appts back to a single family, Historical Society was involved, PITA, but a job to be proud of when we were done. The HO wanted these for the "public" areas, living rm, dining rm, halls, etc. Very nice, and you can even get dimmers like this, the top is on/off push button, bottom is rotary dimmer. However, some are not UL listed. I should try to scan some of my pics from this job (pre-digital camera) and post them.
 
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#5 · (Edited)
Did these dimmers still look like the vintage switches? I may be thinking of something else, but they have 2 round buttons, when you push one in the other pops out?

My girlfriends old house from her marriage was a coplete custom build from the 70's(i had never seen 2inch copper vents before), it had toggle switches with no plastic involved, just a metal yoke and a ceramic frame, wait now that I think of it the actual switch that stuck through the plate was plastic. But the back of the switch was cool, all the workings could be seen, and with all the ceramic they had some weight.
 
#6 ·
Yes the dimmers looked just like the push button swiches. They just operated a bit differently. The normal swich would push in/pop out , but the dimmer the top button would push in and out itself, and the bottom you would turn to dim the light.
 
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