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Thomson-Houston telephone desk set
Gold-plated metal (probably made from nickel-plated copper) telephone, in line with the "candlestick" tradition. It is seated on a round base with a bell ringer, two brown cord outputs (one is the handset cord and the other the line cord) and a vertical cylindrical neck. At the top of the stand, there is a switch hook upon which is hung the corneal cylindrical ear piece containing a receiver and a black mouthpiece. Since as early as the late 1890s, the telephone was introduced not only as a means of telecommunication but also as a decorative feature. Especially for Americans, the candlestick telephone determined their house decoration. This telephone design derived from the effort to create the "clean" ear piece. The basic idea behind this was that a normal ear piece could - as it was considered at the time - prevent the mouth-to-mouth transmission of diseases. The way the device was manufactured allowed the users to clean the microphone with a cloth. These devices were very expensive at their time, however, their sanitary nature has not been proved.