Until I started serious collecting in November of 2000, I only had a few keys in the shack. A J-38 that I've had since 1962. A 1965 E.F. Johnson Speed-X 114-520 that I received for Christmas that year. A J-37 on a KY-116/U Assembly (Knee Key) I bought at The PHD ARA Hamfest is 1995. A Vibroplex Iambic Keyer that I pick up at The St Joseph, MO Hamfest in 2000 . Plus two Japanese hand keys, one brown and one black, that came with code practice oscillators.

In November, 2000 I aquired a BK-100 High Mound at a local radio club auction and the flood gates were open. Everything else has been aquired since then. My knowledge of keys and keyers comes mainly from these sources and whatever turns up while surfing the net.

I use WW7W's fine effort for dating my Vibroplexs.

I don't believe Vibroplex started or stopped production, the use of a type of name plate or a type of keyer on January 1st or December 31st of any given year. Add to that special order keys and you find some real deviations from these fine efforts.

The data contained in these sources has been compiled over many years by these people expending great amounts of time, energy and in most cases money. However, I don't think anyone would say any single source is all inclusive or 100% accurate. These works are very excellent guidelines and should be considered just that.

The term bug was used in the 1800's to describe a Morse operator who wasn't good at sending with a hand-pump key. When operator's started to transition to semi-automatic keys in the early 1900's the keys themselves became known as bugs. The introduction of bug semi-automatics helped reduce the incidence of repetitive motion 'glass arm' (Carpel Tunnel) syndrome that afflicted many early morse operators. KL7XX