Beschreibung:

First Telephone made by L.M. Ericsson, 1878 Butterstamp telephone with whistle calling, on original rosewood stand with one fixed and one sprung support, signed on the Gutta Percha covered tube and on the stand, with later Bell type telephone as a receiver, old replacement whistle and cover on underside of base, 3 in. diameter, 8 in. lg. including whistle, stand 5 x 7 ¼ in., extremely rare and early exhibition piece and collector's item! On 7 March 1876 Alexander Graham Bell of Salem, Massachusetts, was granted a U.S. patent for an electro-magnetic apparatus for "transmitting two or more telegraphic signals simultaneously along a single wire by the employment of transmitting-instruments". Bell's telephone used an earphone as a transmitter and a receiver. Although Bell-type telephones were introduced to Europe in 1877 for the first experimental connections, the currents produced were too weak for the sets to be used effectively as transmitters. As Bell had not patented his device in Scandinavia or Germany, the Berlin engineering firm Siemens & Halske was able to produce copies of his set. Some of these early sets presumably found their way to the workshops of Lars Magnus Ericsson in Sweden for repair, since Ericsson in turn began to manufacture magnetic telephones based on the Bell an Siemens & Halske pattern towards the end of 1878. In his article "Magnetic Receivers of the 1880s", Ken Bushell estimates that Ericsson built around 400 magnetic telephones between 1878 and 1880 without meeting an overwhelming demand for their device. – The present example resembles the simpler Bell/Edison and Siemens & Halske-pattern butterstamp telephones more closely than the decorative desk model produced by Ericsson in 1879, which featured a similar stand to the one seen here, but a more elaborately embossed cylinder with the legend "L.M. Ericsson, Stockholm". It seems, therefore, likely that this model is an early example, possibly even produced at the time of the Paris Exposition Universelle of 1878, which showcased several new inventions, including Thomas Edison's improved version of Bell's telephone. The discovery of the present example in Brazil raises the possibility that it may have been acquired for a governmental office during the reign of Emperor Dom Pedro II (from 1831 to 1889). Dom Pedro II, a moderniser with a keen interest in technology, attended the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition in 1876 and visited both Edison and Bell in the USA in the same year. He was the first person to purchase stock in the Bell Telephone Company and the earliest residential telephone was installed in his summer palace in Petrópolis, forty miles from Rio de Janeiro. – Literature: For an early description of magnetic telephones and their development, see Preece and Maier (1889) "The Telephone"; for a comparison between Ericsson and Siemens & Halske receivers, see Povey and Earl (1988) "Vintage Telephones of the World", Figures 1.7 and 1.8; Ken Bushell article: http://telephonecollecting.org/receiver.html.; for information on Dom Pedro II: https://memory.loc.gov/intldl/brhtml/br-1/br-1-5-2.html Das erste Telephon von L.M. Ericsson, 1878 Fernsprecher in Stempelform, mit Anrufpfeife, auf Original-Ständer aus Rosenholz, mit einem festen und einem gefederten Halter, signiert auf dem mit Guttapercha überzogenem Tubus und dem Ständer, mit Bell-Typ-Telephon als Hörer, Anrufpfeife und Abdeckung auf der Unterseite des Ständers ergänzt, Ø 7,5 cm, Länge mit Pfeife 20 cm, Ständer 18,5 x 13 cm. Außerordentlich seltenes und frühes Exponat und Sammlungsstück! Am 7. März 1876 wurde Alexander Graham Bell aus Salem, Massachusetts, ein Patent für ein elektromagnetisches Gerät eingetragen: "gleichzeitige Übertragung von zwei oder mehr telegraphischen Signalen durch einen einzelnen Draht mit dem Einsatz von Sende-Instrumenten". Bells Telephon funktionierte gleichzeitig als Sender und Empfänger. 1877 wurden die ersten Bell-Typ-Telephone für Versuche in Europa eingeführt. Die