Posted 10 years ago
VintageWiki
(5 items)
Hi all,
I'm the owner of a vintage blog called vintagewiki (www.vintagewiki.com) and I write articles about cool vintage items.
For this post, I specifically want to provide you with more information on the Ericofon :)
The Ericofon is a telephone created by the Swedish Ericsson company, a provider of communications technology and services.
Doesn't ring a bell? Ericofon is also known as the Cobra Phone because its similarity to a snake.
This telephone was designed in the late 1940s, while serial production started in 1954. Although the first models were sold to institutions only, in 1956 the Ericofon was sold on the European and Australian market. In the USA, the Ericofon was distributed by North Electric.
When the Ericofon was introduced in the USA, initially a set of 18 colors was available. Below you can find a beautiful overview of all colors. For special promotions, a chrome and gold plated ericofon was introduced. Also an orange version, specifically used by the British post office and a clear version were available. Accent green, charcoal, nordic blue and royal dubonnet belong to one of the most rare colors.
The original Ericophone was produced in 2 different designs, the old case and the new case. The old case was molded in two pieces, while the new case was molded as a single piece. The reason for design change was only to accomodate molding. Also clearly visibile, the new case was shorter and more angled.
In 1976, a third version was introduced, namely "Model 700". It is very different compared to earlier Ericofons, mainly by its squarish design. This model was part of the centennial celebration of the LM Ericsson company. It was only produced in Sweden. Ericsson gave the phone the nickname "Centenary Ericofon". Model 700 Ericofons were available in five colors: green, brown, white, blue and orange.
Hope you enjoyed this article!
Wow.....Thats a lot of Neat phones!!
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STUNNING!!
Ericofons are SO COOL!! I've got a red one (already shown here) and a couple of white, one of the white ones has a rare (I think?) built in "ringer" which was an electronic warbletone instead of an actual bell -- I believe one of the very first examples of such to begin to train 'the public' towards that kind of sound for a phone instead. Also from the useless trivia dept, Ericofons had wide usage in hospitals of the time (those "institutions" VintageWiki refers to) because they could be easily used with only one hand by a bedridden patient. This ease of operation also proved to be somewhat of an unintended consequence when the Ericos were introduced to the home market -- it took people some getting-used-to with the idea that if they answered the Ericofon then wanted to set it down for something, they had to *lay* it down or they'd inadvertently hang up on their caller...? <lol>
https://www.collectorsweekly.com/stories/240040-bright-red-ericofon-with-close-but-not
Hi all. Very good post. I live in Sweden and buy "Cobra" phones quite often. An incredible number of sellers are shocked that I ask if the phone is 21 or 23 cm.
I just wanted to add one thing. There is another model that Ericsson has released.
The ECOPHONE a phone that was inspired by the "Cobra phone" only 600 was made 1995-97. Sales took place through design stores (approx. half) and in batches to companies Ericsson and Telia. The phone is in wood. I have one and if enybody is interested let me now and I can send some photos.