ERICSSON Ericofon

The Ericofon is a one-piece plastic telephone created by the Ericsson Company of Sweden and marketed through the second half of the 20th century. It was the first commercially marketed telephone to incorporate the dial and handset into a single unit. Because of its styling and its influence on future telephone design, the Ericofon is considered one of the most significant industrial designs of the 20th century by Phaidon.[1] It is in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. In Sweden, the Ericofon is known as the cobra telephone for its resemblance to a coiled snake

The Ericofon was designed in the late 1940s by a design team including Gösta Thames, Ralph Lysell, and Hugo Blomberg.[3] The two major components of the telephone, 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. Serial production began in 1954. Early models were sold only to institutions, but in 1956 production for the open market began in Europe and Australia.

As the Bell System did not permit the operation of third-party equipment on their network, the Ericofon could only be used by independent telephone companies in the United States. North Electric in Galion, Ohio, manufactured the Ericofon for the North American independent market.