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

布雷克拍品等级是为了方便竞买人判断拍卖品的成色而设置的。布雷克等级用1到6级来标注外观和功能的成色，(从非常好到非常差)。 在目录图册里用括号里的2个数字来表示，前一个数字表示外观成色的级别，后一个数字表示功能成色的级别。如(3/2)表示外观成色是3(满意的)，功能成色2(好)。 成色 定义参照下列标准： 1 - 非常好 (未使用过，没有使用痕迹) 2 - 好 (新，极少的使用痕迹) 3 - 满意的 (普通的使用痕迹) 4 - 及格的 (明显的使用痕迹，某个非主要部件是后配的) 5 - 有缺陷的 (极明显的使用痕迹, 某个主要部件是后配的，功能上有缺陷，需要修理) 6 - 非常差 (严重破损, 缺少重要部件)