A nice little find,80's touch tone Unifoon

[Matilo Telephones]

Today I have my day off work. Paternity leave, 1 day a week. Doing the groceries with my 2 year old son we stopped at a 2nd had shop near our house.

Sometimes they have nice Phone stuff there and of course other interesting things as well. It is a bit messy, so all the more fun to sniff around.

Picked up this Phone today. 3 euro 50. It is an 1981 Unifoon. Made in Holland for the PTT. This is a DTMF version. There is a pulse version too, with keypad. It was designed and also produced by ATEA in Antwerp. In Belgium they had a Rotary version too. And a deluxe version covered in leather. They had some interesting colors there too, for example bright yellow.

Here they have mostly shades of brown. And red of course, which I already have. My red one is a pulse dialing version. They also had black, green and beige. And of course this one, pearl/cream.

Nice 80's era Phone. look designy, but the bulky handset is actually not very practical. Doesn't feel nice to hold the handset, because of its squareness, size and you cannot clamp it between your head and sholder.

Normally I buy these for parts. Transmitter and receiver are compatible with bakelite phones. I can also use the cords and plug.

This one is in good condition. Almost no discoloration! And even the numbercard is still blank. Maybey I'll use it to convert my red one to DTMF. Maybe I'll keep it.

[GeneGenie]

Nice phone, looks almost like my blue Rhapsody, except the keys are different.

[Matilo Telephones]

Hey, didn't know they had this model in the UK. It is exactly like the Rhapsody, except for the keys.

Do you know who produced these? Where were they made?

Love the blue color.

[Matilo Telephones]

Aha, found this:


TSR8012 Rhapsody Telephone

Designed by Atea of Belgian these early push-button telephone were manufactured by GTE in 1982 and marketed within the Telephone Special Range (TSR) as the Rhapsody (SR1012, TSR 8012). The Rhapsody was offered in ivory, beige and tan leather (shown here). In 1982 customers had to pay an installation charge of £25 for the Rhapsody and had to pay an additional £ 2.25 in quarterly rental.
 

[Contempra]

It looks like a contempra with his design...

[Matilo Telephones]

I suppose it does a bit. There are more sqaure phones with blocky handsets. They all look a bit like a contempra.

No doubt the unifoon was inspired by the contempra, as the contempra was designed earlier.

Still have the contempra on my wishlist, in red.

[Contempra]

A contempra is a + in a collection and I have two but no red one but one day maybe... they're expensive in this color...

[Matilo Telephones]

Yes, they are not cheap. And in Holland only the touch tone ones were distributed. So they are not available locally.

But every once in while I buy something expensive with the proceeds of my sales. About twice a year. So, maybe next year.

[Matilo Telephones]

Hey, our former queen used to have an exact same phone and used it for years and years!

Here is an article about it in English, and with pics!

http://electrospaces.blogspot.nl/2013/01/dutch-queen-beatrix-phone.html

[Contempra]

thanks matilo for the link.