 When Western Electric had sufficiently developed modern handset design in the 1920s, the Western Electric candlesticks were superseded by a series of new desktop models, starting with the A1 mount in the mid 1920s.This was essentially a candlestick telephone that had its vertical tube-shaft shortened to about in height above the round base, and had a cradle on top of it, designed to hold a combined handset with both the receiver and the transmitter in the same unit.The cradle contained a plunger that operated the hookswitch in the base below.