Automatic telephone photographed on December 4th, 1929

Automatic telephone photographed on December 4th, 1929. Mr. Maillard’s telephone wire reel device was intended to eliminate the inconvenience caused by often bulky and tangled telephone wires, to facilitate the use of the telephone itself and to eradicate wear and tension on the wires. The device was simple and could fit all types of telephones. It allowed successive winding and unwinding without entangling the wires. When the device was not being used, the visible part of the wires was reduced to a short section stretched between its own base and the earphone’s hooks. The wire was wrapped in and around the winding mechanism at the device’s base. Once the earphones were unhooked and separated from the base, the wires could be unwound. Office national des recherches scientifiques et industrielles et des inventions. Extract from the book Inventions 1915-1939 by Luce Lebart.