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Nutone Dinner Chime

Nutone “Chimette” Table Dinner Chimes

Dinner chimes were a forerunner and contemporary of door chimes, and are still in use today. They were commonly used on railroads to announce the availability of table service on dining cars. This example is complete with its original packaging, although the mallet is missing. The 1939 Nutone chime brochure advertised Nutone Table Dinner Chimes:

(U)sed as maid calls in homes, especially for dining room table signal instead of buzzer. Also to call stenographers in offices—used by hotels, music schools and studios for tuning instruments to International Pitch. Each model is hand tuned to notes G, E and C.

You can duplicate the most famous sound which comes out of millions of radio sets each day, the tones of the NBC chimes. By tapping the three reeds you can exactly duplicate the famous NBC chime tones.

ManufacturerNutone Inc.
Location of ManufacturerCincinnati, Ohio
Date of ManufactureApproximately 1936-1939 (patent on box issued in 1936)
MaterialsBrass and Polished Brass
Dimensions9 inches tall, 4 1/2 inches wide, 1 3/4 inches deep

Many doorbell manufacturers used these three notes in their doorbells, notably the Rittenhouse Beverly.  This is entirely fitting, since the NBC chimes had been introduced in August of 1938 as the “Big-Ben” of America owing to an elaborate clock installation that could be heard on the hour through-out Rockerfeller Center. Radio City and the NBC headquarters of NBC, was then, and is now, the home of NBC.