If you're an uncompromising collector of antique technology, make sure to check out all my listings after you look at this one. I don't think you'll find a better, broader or more balanced assortment of technical antiques anywhere -- hundreds of no-reserve auctions each year, almost all of them featuring eye-popping "gee whiz" gadgetry in exceptional original condition. And don't forget, you can click this link to quickly add and then save me to your favorite seller list and Ebay will automatically send you updates when I put similar new listings online.

Here's a compact, beautifully engineered field telegraph manufactured in the late teens by Western Electric Italiano in Milan. This is electro-mechanical technology bordering on art, folks, and you don't have to look at it too closely or for too long to realize that it was clearly built to outlast either you or me.

Heavily nickeled fittings, billet steel panels, bearings machined to ridiculously tight tolerances, and a spring-motor register that runs quietly but convincingly, pulling paper tape across the head of the stylus, leaving a trail of dots and dashes in its wake.

Condition is excellent, as you can see in the photographs, and everything required for telegraph transmission and reception is housed in a robust, self-casing cabinet that measures just 8" x 8" x 20" when closed.

The spring motor is good, the key winds the spring effortlessly, the reels open and collapse with just a few lever clicks.

This is Western Electric gear at its very best, so I'm reasonably sure that everything still works as designed, but it's nonetheless more than a century old and is therefore being offered for historical and/or collecting purposes only. Please look at the pictures and consider them an integral part of the description.

Shipping weight, packed properly, will be approximately 55 lb.

I'm one of ebay's best known, most highly regarded sellers of technical collectibles and technical antiques. I've been selling and shipping them for more than 25 years. When you purchase an item from me, you can rest assured that your purchase will arrive safely because it's been carefully packed (by me, not by some well-intentioned but nonetheless confounded, doe-eyed teenager working at the UPS store who wouldn't know a sextant from a steamship), Sure, you can probably get a lower price from Joe and Janet Barn-Find, but when your "bargain" arrives broken, and without any hint of how you might be able to put it back together, you'll realize that you really do get exactly what you pay for.