History

The Ericofon is a Swedish telephone handset created by Ericsson. It was designed in the late 1940s by a design team including Gösta Thames, Ralph Lysell and Hugo Blomberg. A specific feature of the telephone is that the two major components--the handset and the dial--are combined in a single unit. This one-piece design anticipated the evolution of the typical cordless phone and cell phone by several decades. The Ericofon is considered a landmark in plastic industrial design, and is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Serial production began in 1954. The earlier models were only sold to institutions, but in 1956 production for the open market begun in Europe and Australia. In Sweden it is known as the cobra telephone, due to its similarity with the serpent.

Bell Telephone Laboratories would initially not allow the introduction of the Ericofon to USA, but it soon became a best selling model.


The original phone was produced in two slightly different designs. The earliest version is slightly taller, with the earpiece at nearly a 90 degree angle to the base. A later version has a shorter handle, with the earpiece angled slightly downward. Both versions were produced in all 18 colors. Ericofons were produced using the three-prong plug standard in the USA at the time.

A third verison, the Model 700, was produced beginning in 1976 and is easily distinguished from earlier Ericofons by its squarish design, as well as changes to the handle and plug.

When it was introduced on the USA market, it was available in 18 different colors, but after subsequent transfer of the production to North Electric the number of colors was reduced to eight. A small number of clear and metallic finish phones were also produced for special promotions. The most popular and most produced colors were bright red and bright white. Other colors were various pastel shades of blue, green, and pink. The phone was never produced in black.


Most of the Ericofons made had mechanical rotary dials, typical of all phones made in that era. While Ericofons produced by Ericsson used miniature buzzers as their ringers, North Electric introduced the electronic "Ericotone" ringer in its Ericofons. The Ericotone ringer used a simple, 1-transistor oscillator circuit to produce a distinctive "chirping" sound to serve as the phone's ringer. This was one of the earliest applications of a transistor in a telephone, as telephones with mechanical bell ringers and rotary dials did not need transistors.

North Electric also introduced a touch-tone version of the Ericofon in the United States in 1967, but this variant was not produced in the numbers that the rotary dial version was. The touch-tone version has also become rarer over time as a design flaw in the hookswitch mechanism can cause the phone to become unusable if it is set down too forcibly. North Electric ceased production of the Ericofon for North America in 1972.

Ericsson also introduced a push-button version of the Ericofon, the model 700, for the company's 100th anniversary in 1976. The model 700 had a squarer design but it was not touch-tone. Instead, its electronics transmitted electrical pulses as its buttons were pressed, mimicking the pulses produced by a rotary dial. Ericsson also continued to produce rotary-dial Ericofons until about 1980.