| Name | LM Ericsson WALL PAYPHONE |
| Date | c.1902–1910 |
| Manufacturer | LM Ericsson, Sweden |
| Link | LM Ericsson coin telephone used in Australia |
Information and images with special thanks to Mark Van Der Heever and Peter Van Almelo
Development of the LM Ericsson WALL PAYPHONE (c.1902–1910)
In 1897, with the completion of the new General Post Office in Cape Town, the Postmaster General ruled that all telephone exchanges would include public call offices housed in “silence cabinets” (silentiums or even silence boxes)
Because these cabinets were housed indoors a coin box was not necessarily employed. The telephones were of the standard design in accordance with the type of exchange through which they worked. Calls could be made by paying the Postmaster a small fee in advance. Kimberley has the honour of establishing the first public “call office” in South Africa in 1898.
The earliest purpose-designed public pay phone in the Telkom collection, a magneto wall model, was manufactured by LM Ericsson of Sweden and used in Pretoria between 1902 and 1910. Similar models were used in England and in Australia, and today are very rare.
Above- this shows an Ericsson wall magneto (sporting a royal crest) that was deployed in Pretoria between 1902 and 1910
This model has been modified to accept coins and it has been suggested that there was a coin collector in the battery compartment.
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