Model Ericofon – In use at Jutland Telefon since 1962
I have seen this plate already many times but this time I decided to add one to my collection. Not that it is a beautiful item, or a special collectible, but just because it has some interesting telecom history.
Established in Jutland Denmark in 1895 this telecommunication provider was initially called Jutland Telephone corporation. Nowadays it is part of TDC (est. 2000), after a merger in 1992 with Tele Danmark. In that merger the nationwide company was formed by joining KTAS, Jydsk Telefon, Tele Sønderjylland, Fyns Telefon, and Rigstelefonen.
This is very different of how things were organized in The Netherlands where there was a monopoly already since 1893.
The development of the push-button telephone was merely done at Bell Labs, with the DTMF system being invented in 1959. The 10-button layout was the result of extensive user research by John E. Karlin and his team at the Human Factors Engineering Department of Bell Labs in 1963. The original design did not include the * and # keys, which were added later to facilitate additional functionality. Plus, DTMF phones were able to generate 12 different tone patterns (3×4 matrix), so why not add 2 buttons for future use. It was until 1968 that 10 buttons were quite common. So far history…
Below is a picture of a set Ericofon parts that I got this week. This is just a part of the whole set, but at least the most interesting part.
So what do we’ve got here? Two NOS shells, a non-wired Touch Tone chassis, some chassis plastics, some dial faces, an extra horse shoe switch and a few ear caps. Let’s have a closer look.
The 2 shells are full Touch Tone shells, but… they do not have any holes for the microphone (yet). My best guess is that they were taken from production to be used for assembling the Touch Tone in an early stage.
Two of the 3 ear caps are still on their production reel. The chassis with the dial-face only has 10 buttons and it is not wired. It is just the mechanical basics. On top of that, the keys do not have any print on them.
On the bottom left picture you can see 2 horseshoe switches. A regular one (on the table) and one from this set (on top of the other). You can see that the length is different which also reflects in a post I made earlier.This also means that the dial-faces of the 10 and 12 button version have different shapes as you can see. Not only that, also the plastic chassis part is different. The last picture shows a 12 button wired chassis versus this one. The shapes differ in quite a lot details.
It seems that the set I bought is a set with some prototyping material, that must be obvious. It is considered that a 10 button Touch Tone Ericofon is a prototype. There has been no reference to this type of keypad in any Ericofon documentation and as far as known they were never sold. They were introduced with 12 buttons from the start. Although a fancy dial-face with 10 buttons exists.
All with all I was quite positively surprised when I got the box with this material in the mail. As it normally goes in online buys, the pictures are not always very clear.
I have assembled 1 prototype, so I can add it to my collection. The transparent dial-face I like the most 🙂
Below is a fragment of a movie from 1958 that I found. This Chevrolet-sponsored film is dedicated to the “stylists of America” – the “men and women of taste and imagination” who have the “courage to dream”.
To my surprise the movie starts with a sunset view over the dome of General Motors Tech Center, Warren, Michigan immediately followed by a shot of an Ericofon.
Culture is an attitude. Just own the things that are not yours. Still going on.
Below are some design drawings of the model 700 which was sold as of 1976. My guess is that the drawings were made before 1976 as the bodies are very close to the final shape but not exactly the same. It is a nice colorful set of sketches.
These pictures are credited to the Ericsson archive.
In the category “Not original, but collectible” I have bought another new type of Ericofon. Next to the Nichco metallic phones, and CEAC painted there is a nice third category. These are the ‘fuzz’ Ericofons. I don’t think that I mentioned them before.
Originally this Ericofon was a flat Sahara from 1969, but now the surface is furry and soft. It is a structure applied on the original shell by so called ´flocking´. ´Flocking is the application of millions of tiny fibers onto an adhesive-coated surface to create a velvet-like texture´ according to wikipedia and that is exactly how it was done.
Although the flocked summery structure with its bright yellow color is quite vulnerable, it still looks good.
The fuzz Ericofon was a product of phone companies in the 1970, to enlarge the standard color-set. As far as I know there are 4 colors of this type: Green, Red, Blue and Yellow. At least these colors I have seen.
An advertisement from 1980, as placed in the newspaper Het Vrije Volk, which was a social-democratic newspaper at that time in the Netherlands. The Ericofon marketed at the Femina, a fair just for women that once started in 1949. The telecommunication company PTT targeted women as group for the Ericofon.
It is another nice but subtle example of the sexualization of the Ericofon. Or maybe it is just how I experience the picture and the fact they were on a women’s fair. 🙂 Long time ago I had another post on this topic.
Some time back I came across a very nice Ericofon related item that was put up for sale. That was the first and also the last time I have seen this one. Unfortunately it went out for quite a large sum of money so I was not able to get it. Would have been nice though 🙁
It seems to be an original box with 9 color samples of the Ericofon. I guess it was manufactured in Sweden and I am not even sure if this set is complete. That’s all I know, but it is still an intriguing item. If you know more, please let me know.
As you know I am not only collecting Ericofon models and colors. Also from dial face perspective I want to be complete. But this is a challenge…
There are still 5 different dial faces missing in my collection. Three rotary and two Touch Tone types. The pictures were taken from Richard’s site Ericofon.com.
Top left is an early Australian rotary dial face, which is very special with letters only. Bob Mills told me in a short email conversation we had, that he has seen it on 3 different ‘proto’ old cases from around 1955. Old cases were never sold in Australia as the Ericofon was offered to the public in 1963 only.
Top middle is an early Swedish Telia dial. It dates from prior to the time they printed their logo on it. The ‘window’ is smaller in size. The picture should be credited to Thomas Johansson.
Top right is the infamous Chinese dial. It was used in Asia as you can imagine 😉 e.g. Singapore and China. There could only be a few left as old phones were destroyed by the phone companies when replaced. They did not want people to use it without paying rent for it.
Bottom left is the early Swedish Touch Tone key pad. Here the ‘A’ and ‘B’ represent the ‘*’ and ‘#’. The picture should be credited to Ove Svensson.
Bottom right is most likely a prototype as it is only having 10 buttons instead of 12. Missing are the ‘*’ and ‘#’. Obviously no further information on this type can be found.
So… missing 5. If you have or see these dials, please let me know!
