The very first fully integrated rotary desk telephone?

[Matilo Telephones]

What do you think? Is this the first fully integrated desk Phone? Ringer, capacitor, coil are all inside the housing. Dial is not simply bolted on with a separate housing.

Siemens & Halske ZBSA 11 (1911)

Or is there an even earlier one?

[Sargeguy]

Does this one count?

[Matilo Telephones]

Is that a mobile Phone?

I adapted the title of this thread as I meant a Rotary Phone.

[unbeldi]

I think you're pretty close. There was a ZB/SA-08, but it was principally a manual phone with provisions to add a dial.

The dial in the SA11 was really too bulky to put into a nice self-enclosed shell.

Automatic Electric only had fully integrated wall sets at the time, I believe.  Their 11-digit Strowger desk telephone still required a subscriber set.

The best place to look is probably at sources that describe what else was connected to the Hildesheim central office in 1908.

The dial in the ZBSA11 is actually from AE and not from Siemens:

[rdelius]

The "Eiffle Tower" set was self contained.Ind coil hidden in the wooden cradle support.
Did not notice rotary when I first posted

[unbeldi]

The "Eiffle Tower" set was self contained.Ind coil hidden in the wooden cradle support.

I think I have seen some Skeleton versions with a dial, but I am sure those were created much later than the 1910s, and don't know if that was done by Ericsson. Ericsson was way behind on automatic switching and didn't have a system until the 1920s. Never seen a Skeleton without a generator though, IIRC, yet there were some common battery signaling systems that did use a generator for signaling directly on the party line.

[Matilo Telephones]

I have seen Skeleton phones /Eiffel towers with a dial, but they are later add ons (AFAIK) and are not really part of the original design. They look like they were bolted on as an afterthought.

There is also the Danish D08, but that dial and housing are later additions to the design.

I'll have a closer look at the Hildesheim telephones, as I can only recall wall phones from memory.

The Strowger 11 digit you mention, is the potbelly, right? Is that 1905?

[unbeldi]

I have seen Skeleton phones /Eiffel towers with a dial, but they are later add ons (AFAIK) and are not really part of the original design. They look like they were bolted on as an afterthought.

There is also the Danish D08, but that dial and housing are later additions to the design.

I'll have a closer look at the Hildesheim telephones, as I can only recall wall phones from memory.

The Strowger 11 digit you mention, is the potbelly, right? Is that 1905?

Yes, that year is approximately right.  It came in desk-top candlestick-like version with a separate subscriber set for the bell and coil, and in the wall set version.  Initially these required three-wires (VERT, ROT, and Ground) to separately control vertical and horizontal (rotary) selectors, but by 1908 or so they changed them to two-wire circuits.  The dial from the three-wire system is mechanically involved, and clunky, but the two-wire dial initially wasn't that much more compact either. It is this dial from the two-wire system that Siemens used in the ZBSA-11.  ZBSA = central-battery "self-connection", alluding the fact that the subscriber establishes a connection himself.   By 1912, or so, Siemens installed their own first automatic exchange in Munich, and I assume this is the instrument that they used.

Here are the Strowger 11 instruments, taken from McMeen & Miller Telephony.  Externally, it's easy to recognize the origin of the dial in the ZBSA11.

[Matilo Telephones]

Thanks, yes. These dials are virtually the same.

I found this other phone. It is an OB, local battery version.

But also the dial is sort of integrated in the housing.

This one is form 1908.

[unbeldi]

Ah, I have seen this picture before...  I think it is from a German book.

This was for the Bavarian postal administration, which stayed autonomous from the Reichspost for a long time, as is so typical for the independent Bavarian mindset.

The dial was acquired from Siemens. I don't think this was actually made any earlier than the ZBSA11. The records are not at all clear to me, I have seen various dates on diagrams and such.

[Matilo Telephones]

Quite so, it is from "Telefone 1863 - 2000" by the German Post and telecommunications museum.