On Sunday, January 13, 2013 1:23:52 AM UTC, Frank Erskine wrote:
snip


Early telephone switchboard cords had to be highly flexible and
durable. They consisted of very fine strands of tinsel (cadmium copper
or bronze) spun around mercerised cotton. It was then served with
layers of silk or rayon, then covered with soft cotton braiding.
The only practicable way of terminating these reliably was binding the
end with fine tinned copper wire formed into a loop, virtually
crimping it, to attach to the screw connectors of a "jack plug", or
crimping on a spade connector for the fixed end of the cord.

Later cords used tiny crimped brass eyelets at the plug end.

Certainly solder didn't come into it at all :-)

Obviously all three conductors of the cord were then lapped in soft

cotton and finished with a layer of glazed cotton of the correct

colour.



It all kept the cotton industry going!

As I recall the plaited leads that were used with the old bakelite phones (200/300 series) were also made using tinsel. These days you can buy replacements for use when restoring phones, but most of the ones I've seen seem to be pve covered wire just given an outer braided covering - doesn't work the same way at all.