Auction 80 Part 1 Jewish and Israeli History, Culture and Art
Jun 29, 2021
8 Ramban St, Jerusalem., Israel

The auction has ended

LOT 21:

Collection of Telephone Directories, Business Guides and Governmental Brochures - The British Mandate for Palestine ...

Sold for: $650
Start price:
$ 400
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Collection of Telephone Directories, Business Guides and Governmental Brochures - The British Mandate for Palestine and Early Years of the State of Israel / Contract for Installing a Telephone Line in Jerusalem, from 1920
Collection of items related to the development of the telephone and postal addresses in Palestine: fourteen telephone directories, business guides and governmental brochures; an early contract for installing a telephone line in Jerusalem. Palestine, 1920s to 1960s. English and Hebrew.
1. Mandatory contract for installing a telephone line in Palestine, from 8.12.1920. Between the Joseph Deutch & A.M. Freund company and the Postmaster General.
This contract was signed for the construction of one of the first telephone lines in Palestine. According to records in the State Archive, on July 1921, six months after the contract was signed - only 43 telephone lines operated in the country. See: Daniel Rosenne, "Communications in Eretz Israel during the British Mandate: posts, telegraphs, telephones and radio " (Hebrew); The Association for the Commemoration of the Fallen Soldiers of the IDF Signal Corps, 2019.
2-6. Five telephone directories and business guides from the British Mandate period. Including: "Register of Commerce and Industry in Palestine" (Hebrew), 1935; "The Telephone Directory, Tevet 1936" (Hebrew); "The 1939 Palestine Guide" (Hebrew); and More.
7. "Jerusalem Guide" (Hebrew) by Yom-Tov Hel-Or. Jerusalem: Weiss Press, 1948.
The guide was published at the private initiative of its author, who went door-to-door to gather the necessary information (even after the British authorities forbade movement on the streets after the outbreak of the war). It was printed anonymously in 1948 at the Weiss printing house in Jerusalem; however, most of its copies were destroyed when the printing house was damaged in a car bomb explosion on Ben Yehuda St. (February 1948). In 2015, the writer's sons printed a facsimile edition of the guide. The NLI listing of this edition notes: "A facsimile edition of a single copy that remained from the 1948 Jerusalem edition".
8-12. Five governmental telephone directories from the early years of the state of Israel, from 1950, 1953, 1955, 1960 and 1963.
13-15. Three governmental brochures on the subject of telephone communication: "Summary of Postal, Telegraph and Telephone Information" (1929); "A List of Prices of Toll Calls" (Hebrew; 1946); "The Dial, a Leaf for Telephone Subscribers" (Hebrew), issue 11 (1962).
Size and condition vary. Good to fair overall condition. Blemishes, stains, creases and small tears to edges of some booklets. The "Jerusalem Guide" is in fair-poor condition, with mold damage.