Mark 1, Mark 2, Mark 3?

[hb88banzai]

I don't think I've ever heard anyone say the Crich door is more crudely made than Barnet, just that it was hung backwards.

A couple shots of open doors on Barnet type boxes seem to show the same construction, but the resolution is poor.

[hb88banzai]

Here is the photo ironageman is referring to --



The caption for the photo merely states, "An early wooden Metropolitan Police Box used with the new scheme c. 1930. Credit: Metropolitan Police."

Whoever originally scanned it from the book didn't get it flat on the glass and I haven't had a chance to scan it myself, but it's enough to get the idea.

Along with the things pointed out by Ironageman, you can see what I mean about the base being shimmed and left hanging. Extreme example of it here. Also note there is no lower signage at all, neither for the phone nor St. Johns, and no fixed knob on the main door.

The Box could also be facing south if the photo was taken in the afternoon.

Besides Ironageman's observation of the dots in a diamond configuration in the air above the box, there is the faint suggestion in the higher-res photo I posted from the book of Pictorial Knowledge that there are actually nominally horizontal lines running through the dots. Also there are two horizontal lines or wires faintly visible in both photos just above the fence line on the left side of the Box.


EDIT: Note that this Box has since been able to be identified as V21 - http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=8310 -- hb88banzai

[galacticprobe]

Is that a mini Jagaroth spaceship on top of this box? (It sure looks like one.)

Dino.

[hb88banzai]

What, you didn't know that the early Met Boxes were powered by the world's first nuclear reactors?  


Actually, all the timber boxes initially had this "reactor" or "Jagaroth" style top beacon. The first batch of concrete boxes had a very similar one --



The Fresnel beacons came a little later. All three types shone red when illuminated, the Fresnel versions having an internal colored cylinder or dome until around the time that the early Mark 2 livery came into use (circa 1937-1938), possibly even later.

[galacticprobe]

I never saw a box with a beacon like that before. This is a first for me. At first glance, seeing how dark the ball was (granted the B&W photo makes even red-colored things look black) I thought it may have been a ventilator ball similar to those atop lighthouses. I never thought it would have been a lamp. (And the way that first photo's ball lamp looks, I just couldn't resist the Jagaroth comment.)

Thanks for the info. That's one more piece of history I'll try to keep in my feeble head. As a living historian I really appreciate things like this.

Dino.

[hb88banzai]

One thing you can't see in either photo, but that you can see here http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=2090.msg46128#msg46128 is that the wires come out of the bottom of the globe and go straight down into the center of the peak of the roof.

[hb88banzai]

Of course, there were also these things during the war --



Here on a timber box, but concrete boxes and Met Posts had them too. More of a over over the lamp to meet blackout regulations while still being useable, but still a very different look.

[Mark]

What is going on with the steps below the Police Box sign?

If you look at the right hand side face, presumably the door side, the steps have a short piece attached at either post side.

I did think it may be some sort of lighting/shadow effect but have to rule this out because I can't figure a way this could be acheived?

[hb88banzai]

It's the shadow to the raised frame around the "POLICE PUBLIC CALL BOX" sign glass. It's hitting just above the line of the step, with the rest of the sign box hitting a little above that.

[Rassilons Rod]

Is that a mini Jagaroth spaceship on top of this box? (It sure looks like one.)

Dino.

You beat me to it, Dino!

Of course, there were also these things during the war --

Is that definitely on the box or could it be on the wall behind?

[hb88banzai]

It's definitely on the box.

[galacticprobe]

You beat me to it, Dino!

Well, Marc... I thought the same thing when I saw your original post about it, so I cranked up what's left of my TARDIS and went back a couple of days - it's all she could manage - and posted it before you did! (Wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey...)

This time, instead of looking like a mini Jagaroth ship, that (lamp?) box atop the police box looks like the enclosed observation tower on some US Life-Saving Stations from the late 1800s. (Just Google US Life-Saving Station; there are so many historic images of them that you'l find one to match.)

Dino.

[galacticprobe]

And also note that the roofs on the timber boxes actually came to a point (at least before the hole was made for the cabling for the beacons). If you look at the below pic (erroneously tagged as taken in 1926 by Ghetty Images) you can see it is of people (one cropped out of image) checking out a timber box that has just been erected, and before the GPO has installed any of the hardware (no handles, signs, or beacon).



Wish we had a real date for this pic. I suspect that whatever year it was (most likely 1929 based on the most accepted start date for the pilot program), it was possibly late summer or early fall as there are still leaves on the trees and yet, though newly erected, there are still a few fallen leaves visible on the tops of the sign boxes.

For reference (in case somebody knows where this was) here's a lower res version of the full pic -

Again for reference purposes one of these images has appeared in this new thread: http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=3864.0.

Dino.

EDIT: Fixed link after merging Topics -- hb88banzai