It’s possible that some of you have never seen a rotary phone in real life. It’s likely that many of you have never used a rotary phone: heard the pulse take the place of the tone, mustered your patience as the dial rolls back it its reset, cursed a number with so many zeroes in it because it takes so long to call. And that’s a shame, because rotary phones are awesome: physical of a time when the home phone was home decor. Here are some of our faves.
LM Ericsson’s Experimental Telephone
This experimental phone was manufactured by LM Ericsson in the 1920s. Interestingly, the handset is made of hard rubber rather than something like wood.
Picture: Tekniska museet
The M33
Built in circa 1931, the M33 was the fruit of a collaboration between the Electric Bureau in Oslo and AB Alpha workshops in Sundbyberg. Designers: Jean Heiberg and Johan Christian Bjerknes.
Picture: Tekniska museet
Western Electric #202 desk phone.
Made in the 1930s.
Picture: Mark Mathosian
LM Ericsson’s gilded handset
Gilded table model of ivory, distributed to larger LM Ericsson customers in the 1930s.
Picture: Tekniska museet
Triple Rotary Phone
This phone was in the New York Stock Exchange’s master control panel, circa 1950.
Picture: George Pickow/Three Lions/Getty Images
Drive-in public phone
Built in the 1950s.
Picture: Mark Mathosian
Ericofon
Also known as the “Cobra Phone” the Ericofon was designed in the late 1940s by a design team including Gösta Thames, Ralph Lysell, and Hugo Blomberg. Made by Ericsson Company of Sweden, production began in 1954. It’s in MOMA now.
Picture: Marcin Wichary/Holger.Ellgaard/Wikimedia Coommons
Swedish Bakelite
A red Swedish bakelite phone with unique vertical rotary dialler, 1955.
Picture: Tekniska museet
The Princess Phone
Designed by Henry Dreyfuss and introduced by the Bell System in 1959.
Picture: Mark Mathosian
Aircraft Phone
Another cool Swedish design: telephone embodied in the form of an aircraft, circa 1960.
Picture: Tekniska museet
Rotary Phones At NASA
This is rocket science: director of NASA Wernher von Braun on the phone, 1961.
Picture: Keystone/Getty Images//Joe Haupt
View Phone
1964: A Japanese telephone operator in Tokyo use the new View Phone, made by Toshiba Shibaura Electric Co.
Picture: Keystone/Getty Images
Bakelite, 1968
Classic black bakelite phone from 1968.
Picture: Tekniska museet
Toshiba’s Model 500 View Phone
Here’s the Model 500 being tested at the company’s Tokyo headquarters, 1968.
Picture: Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
The Transparent Telehpone
A transparent telephone at an exhibition, ‘This Super-Phonic Age’ produced by London’s Telephone Service at Gamages Store, London, 1969.
Picture: Michael Webb/Keystone/Getty Images
Phone with a dial built into the handset, c1970.
Picture: Theron LaBounty
The Disco Queen
From the collection of the Museum of Communications in Seattle, probably from the ’70s.
Picture: Marcin Wichary
1977 Western Electric Sculptura
The Phone Of The Future
Jeff Booker demonstrating his prize-winning ‘phone of the future’ design, 1982.
Picture: Central Press/Getty Images
Picture: Tekniska museet/Flickr