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Time Travellers on the phone?

Started by FABphones, May 10, 2023, 03:00:30 AM

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FABphones

Several images of people seemingly holding phones to their ear way before the invention of the devices have circulated over the years. Those attached date from the 1920s to the 1940s.

Fake, camera angle - or tourists from the future?

🤔

<Add any other images you find to this thread>

A collector of  'Monochrome Phones with Sepia Tones'   ...and a Duck!
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Vintage Phones - 10% man made, 90% Tribble
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RDPipes

The first two I might be able to explain but that last photo really does look
like he's holding a cellphone to his ear.

FABphones

A collector of  'Monochrome Phones with Sepia Tones'   ...and a Duck!
***********
Vintage Phones - 10% man made, 90% Tribble
*************

AL_as_needed

Let me get my foil hat!  ;D

Actually I do believe this was a topic on the forum many many moons ago, and if i recall correctly it was deduced that there was a hand held hearing-aid type device from that period that this was accredited to. As much as I'd LOVE to go back in time (think of the mint NIB phones!), a cellphone would be useless as it wouldnt have a network.

Wikipedia article showing early devices
TWinbrook7

FABphones

Quote from: AL_as_needed on May 10, 2023, 08:03:19 AM...I do believe this was a topic on the forum many many moons ago...

Just the one short 2013 thread when I searched (no images).

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=8805

Quote from: AL_as_needed on May 10, 2023, 08:03:19 AM...cellphone would be useless as it wouldnt have a network...

With the advances of travelling through time and space, phone masts would be about as essential as a telephone pole is nowadays.

 ;D
A collector of  'Monochrome Phones with Sepia Tones'   ...and a Duck!
***********
Vintage Phones - 10% man made, 90% Tribble
*************

FABphones

Quote from: AL_as_needed on May 10, 2023, 08:03:19 AM...if i recall correctly it was deduced that there was a hand held hearing-aid type device from that period...

This is probably the image (attached) to which that story refers.

The lady in the photo (along with four, IIRC, other work colleagues ) was handed a newly designed 'radio phone' to test. The photo shows her speaking on the device to a designer who was off camera to her right (I do not have the link which details this but it is easily searchable online).
A collector of  'Monochrome Phones with Sepia Tones'   ...and a Duck!
***********
Vintage Phones - 10% man made, 90% Tribble
*************

AL_as_needed

Could easily be the case. "Mobile" or radio-phones were a thing (in a sense) in the 1930s through the 50s but required so much room and power they were not practical.

My grandfather worked for IBM from the early sixties up until they began to implode in the early 90s. The tech they were using and working on even in the early days really is not far off from now. Only difference is things have gotten cheaper and smaller. Email, blue-tooth / wifi, touch screens, all existed in a form back then; just so big and so expensive it couldn't be made into anything marketable.
TWinbrook7

HowardPgh

This thread should be retitled to "People Scratching an Itch :D y Ear"
Howard

19and41

If the pictures were taken on a cold day, it could've been the person had an earache or infection.  Until after WWII, there wouldn't have been antibiotics to correct it.  Speaking from experience, cold air can aggravate it, hence a finger in the ear, or cupped hand over it.
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
— Arthur C. Clarke