The CB-49, manufactured by the Radomska Wytwórnia Telefonów, was the first telephone manufactured in Poland after World War II.
The Central Industrial Area was created in the second half of the 1930s, as the outcome of the enormous government-driven project to develop industry in a large area of Poland between the Vistula and San rivers. One of the beneficiaries of the project was the town of Radom where (as a result of a move or construction) five large new industrial plants were built, including an Ericsson factory. In 1938, Polska Akcyjna Spółka Elektryczna Ericsson relocated its entire production to Radom where production continued until the outbreak of the war. During occupation the Germans changed the factory’s production profile from civilian to military. Until 1944, Ericsson manufactured components (torpedoes, submarine parts) for the navy.
During the turmoil of war, as the German army withdrew westward it disassembled and removed entire production facilities, one which was the Ericsson factory. Fortunately, some of the equipment was hidden by the factory’s employees, and the machines and lathes were found in Czechoslovakia and returned to Radom.
The origin of the first Polish telephone is intertwined with the tumultuous history of the end of World War II and the post-war years. On February 11, 1948, the company named “Polska Akcyjna Spółka Elektryczna Ericsson” was nationalised. This resulted in the expiry of the existing licences for the CB-45 telephones that were manufactured (the licensed name of a subsequent development version of the widely popular Ericsson DBH 1001 telephone from Sweden).
The demand for a Polish telephone model was fully satisfied by the highly successful CB-49. The device’s housing, handset, and connection socket were all made of Bakelite. The microphone and receiver were made of easily replaceable inserts, supported on contact springs in the respective chambers of the handset. The dial was mounted onto the telephone housing and connected to the contact strip using a cable. Other parts of the telephone were screwed to the device base. The CB-49 telephone was mostly produced in black, but there were also red and green models (rare examples). The model presented here is in the extremely rare cherry colour. The design was based on an existing Ericsson model but it was “slimmed down” to 1.9 kg (compared to the 3 kg weight of the original) and was developed over the next 20 years. Subsequent stages of development, mostly differing in the electrical circuits, were the CB-491, CB-59, and CB-591.

In 1954, Zakłady Wytwórcze Aparatów Telefonicznych w Łodzi (T4), which were transformed into Łódzkie Zakłady Radiowe (ŁZR) in 1958 and then (in 1960) into Łódzkie Zakłady Radiowe Fonica, began the production of gramophones. The devices, at the time still based on vacuum tubes, were manufactured in three variants: GE – without a housing, WGE – in a suitcase housing, and SGE – in a box housing. In 1956, the ŁZR launched the Karolinka GE-56 gramophone, which was manufactured until 1961, and in 1963 – the model WG 252, known as the Bambino. The device was enclosed in a cuboid box containing the adapter drive and the turntable. The built-in speaker was placed behind an oval cover, placed in a lid, which one took off the device and put next to the gramophone as a speaker. This practical solution is the hallmark of many of Fonica’s gramophones. The leather-bound gramophone case was made at Spółdzielnia Pracy Branży Skórzanej im. M. Buczka in Piotrków Trybunalski.
Over time, the Bambino became hyped among Polish youth. A statue of it, made by sculptor Jacek Adamas, was erected in the Czesław Niemen Amphitheatre in Olsztyn in 2010. Niemen, one of the most important and popular Polish musicians of the 1960s, was the first musician in Poland to receive a Golden Record in 1968 for selling over 150,000 copies of his Dziwny jest ten świat album. The title song had been distinguished a year earlier with a special award, as well as during the 5th National Festival of Polish Song in Opole. Promotion of music in the form of festivals, song reviews, or top hits lists broadcast on the radio, is a component of the phonographic industry of producing and selling records. Their popularity as an entertainment and leisure medium has a direct impact on the sales of devices used for playing back music. Growing sales of records and promotion of music contribute to the development of new devices.
The Bambino gramophone was jointly designed by Bogdan Ciesielski, Bernard Kowalski, and Jerzy Radwański. The device was one of four models of the gramophone produced under the same name, the others being: WG 262 Bambino 2 and 2b (1969), WG 263 Bambino 3 (1970), and WG 264 Bambino 4 (1972). In the early 1970s, Fonica began manufacturing gramophones using transistors and printed circuit boards, two examples being the Tranzyston (1971) and Bartek (1972).

Authors: Piotr Turowski, Filip Wróblewski

A barograph is a device for measuring atmospheric pressure, which enables mechanically recording the results obtained in the form of a chart called a barogram. The main pressure measurement component in the presented barograph is the so-called aneroid, i.e. a can with a needle attached to it. The lowered pressure inside the can allows it to deform under the influence of the surrounding atmospheric pressure, which results in movement of the needle. The rotating drum of the barograph with paper tape on it, on which a pen is moving, enables recording of data. Modern, miniature electronic barographs store measurements in the device memory instead of mechanically drawing a barogram. The presented instrument was made in the Specjalna Fabryka Instrumentów Geodezyjnych i Rysunkowych Gustawa Gerlacha in Warsaw in the 1930s. The establishment operated from 1816 until World War II and it specialised in the production of surveying instruments such as theodolites, levellers, range finders, steel squares and topographic tables. The company also produced other, small accessories for land surveyors. Instruments from the G. Gerlach factory were considered to be on par in terms of quality with products of the most renowned German manufacturers, such as Zeiss. The company’s strong position was evidenced by international awards and the presence of its branch offices and sales outlets in several cities.

References:
M. Kluza, Polscy wytwórcy instrumentów naukowych w XIX wieku [in:] Polscy twórcy aparatury naukowej, red. A. Strzałkowski, seria Monografie, vol. X, Kraków 2006, pp. 277–285.
G. Gerlach najstarsza polska wytwórnia sprzętu geodezyjnego, prepared by S. Walczak, exhibition catalogue of the Museum of Technology in Warsaw in accordance with the programme prepared by the Main Commission for Museums and Exhibitions of the Polish Surveyors’ Association, Warsaw, October 1973.

The Detefon DT2 was manufactured after the end of World War II by Krakowskie Zakłady Elektroniczne Telpod (T-7). It is a continuation of the pre-war Detefon devices in an unmodified form. Telpod’s product range at the end of the 1940s and beginning of the 1950s mostly included radio parts (potentiometers and switches), radio technology accessories (knobs, plugs or earphone cords) and small electrical equipment. The manufacture of the range was based on the assembly lines of the remains of Telefunken, which had been nationalised after the War, and were moved from Grodzka 13 to Zabłocie after they were taken over by Telpod.
The Detefon DT2 allows the reception of radio waves in short, medium, and long wave bands. The receiver is enclosed in a Bakelite housing to which a crystal detector is attached. On the bottom of the receiver there is a schematic, pictorial operation manual.
In 1929, Polskie Radio SA (the Polish Radio Company), driven by the desire to reach the remotest places in Poland with its programming, initiated a process to design a cheap and functional radio receiver. The first result of the work aimed at fulfilling its expectations was the Detefon detector receiver developed by engineers Wilhelm Rotkiewicz and Czesław Rajski at the Państwowa Wytwórnia Łączności (PWŁ), which had been operating from 1927 and was later transformed into the Państwowe Zakłady Tele-I Radiotechniczne (PZT).
The Detefon is one of early types of radio devices and used the ability of lead sulphide crystals to detect radio waves, hence the widely used name “crystal radio” or “crystal detector”. Radio waves captured by the antenna induced an alternating current in it, which was rectified as it passed the crystal detector. Electrical impulses were then turned into vibrations of the membrane and heard as sound in the earphone. It was only possible to connect two sets of earphones, which limited the number of people who could listen to the radio at the same time. The device required no external power supply, which was its great advantage as the majority of the territory of Poland at the time did not yet have access to electricity. Sales of the Detefon devices in December 1930 began with a promotional campaign with the slogan: “All of Poland has a Detefon”. The relatively low cost of purchase of the Detefon was accompanied by having to pay the monthly radio subscription fee at a fraction of the amount paid by users of stationary radio receivers.

Author: Filip Wróblewski

The Feldfernschreiber is a military, field version of the Hellschreiber, the teleprinter patented by Rudolf Hell in 1929. The purpose of the device is to transmit text messages over a wire or radio connection. Unlike earlier teleprinters, the Feldfernschreiber transmitted complete information about the appearance of the character and not its symbolic, codified representation. This made the transmission resistant to interference, as a distorted character generally still remained legible. This feature also allowed the device to be easily adapted to work with different alphabets and writing systems.
During World War II, devices based on Hell’s system were used by field units of the German army. After the war they were widely used by mail and press agencies. Much like standard teleprinters, the devices remained in use even until the 1990s. Presently, the Hell transmission system is still used by ham radio enthusiasts for amateur radio communication.
The Mende company was established in 1923 by Otto Hermann Mende and Rudolf Müller. Initially, it was mostly known for the production of radios under a license from Philips. The production profile gradually changed from the second half of the 1930s as a result of orders from the German army. Before and during World War II, the Mende factory mostly manufactured equipment for the Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe.
The inventor of the Hellschreiber, Rudolf Hell, was one of the most prominent engineers and machine designers of the 20th century. Apart from the Hell system, he invented the electronically controlled Klischograph photo-engraving device (1951), the first fax machine (1956), the colour scanner (1963), and computerised CRT (1965). He is rightly referred to as the “Edison of the graphics industry” and the “father of digital text processing”.

The low-pressure boiler seen above is used for heating household water by burning solid fuels, e.g., wood, hard coal or brown coal. The upper part of the boiler consists of an enclosed vessel made of copper sheets operating on the overflow principle, and an internal pipe for discharging hot gases from the burner at the bottom of the boiler. This invention significantly improved the standards of household hygiene by providing access to domestic hot water. It was very widely used in residential buildings from the mid-19th century, i.e. from the time when the modern water supply system was invented, up until the 1960s. Operation of the boiler required the user to abide by basic safety principles as there was a very high risk of carbon monoxide poisoning (which could take place if the water exceeded the critical temperature in the tank), much higher than in the case of the later gas-fired boilers. The next stage in the development of the device was the gas fired boiler, which was patented in 1894 by Johannes Vaillant and took advantage of the growing gas networks in cities. The main improvement in comparison to the solid fuel-fired boilers was that it was no longer necessary to add fuel to the furnace or to remove the ashes. The device presented was removed from an apartment in a tenement house in Studencka street in Kraków.
Interesting fact: boilers of similar design and function as the one presented here are still manufactured for use in places without access to gas or electricity.

References:
F. M. Steingress, Low Pressure Boilers, issue IV, Orland Park 2001.

The Tefag radio headphones were produced in the 1920s and 1930s by the German Telephon-Fabrik Berliner AG (of which Tefag is an acronym). The company ran manufacturing operations between 1923-1944, mostly manufacturing cables, telephones, and telecommunications equipment. The enterprise also manufactured loudspeakers and other amplification equipment used in radio broadcasting.
In their operating principle, radio headphones are essentially a telephone receiver and are used for the reception of sound by individuals. They were used in the first radio devices (usually in crystal detectors) and were called a “helmet” or “telephone”. They work by converting electrical energy into acoustic energy, i.e., audible sonic waves. This happens when an electric signal is supplied to the driving mechanism of the membrane, which is usually magnetic, and generates a magnetic field when a voltage is applied across it. The magnetic field causes the membrane to vibrate and its motion at a particular frequency transmits acoustic pressure directly to the ear, hence the need to obtain a tight seal between the earphone and the ear, which is ensured by the ear cups. Early models of such headphones, produced in the inter-war period, are rigid Bakelite cups connected with a wire headband. The advantage of the headphones is their simple design. At the dawn of radio they were used out of necessity, because loudspeakers dedicated to radio receivers did not yet exist.
The operation of the headphones is explained in the Poradnik dla radioamatorów (Eng.: radio amateurs’ guidebook) manual published in Kraków: “the amplified and rectified vibrations of the antenna are brought to the headphone or loudspeaker. Both of these instruments are built using the electromagnetic principle, and they convert electrical vibrations to acoustic ones. Radio headphones are far more sensitive than regular telephone receivers and they react to much weaker impulses. For the sake of convenience they are designed to be worn on the head, i.e., two earphones connected by the helmet are placed comfortably on the head. An earphone needs to have strong magnets so that they do not demagnetise over time (…) They should react to minimal currents (…), they should rest comfortably on the head, without pressing on it too hard, and the wire should be sufficiently long and soft. (…) The so-called Nesper system headphones are headphones with precise tuning, where a screw adjusts the distance between the magnet and the membrane. Headphones without such adjustment are set to an optimum setting in the factory”.

Author: Filip Wróblewski

The Belweder television receiver is designed to receive television broadcasts. The Belweder OT 1471 is the first television set to be manufactured on the basis of Polish documentation and using Polish parts. The first model had a 14-inch cathode-ray tube, and in 1958 the Belweder II OT 1782 variant was made with a 17-inch CRT.
The design of the Belweder was developed and improved between 1955-1957. A prototype version was made in July 1955 and mass production started in November of that year. The receiver was developed at the Studies and Designs Bureau of Warszawskie Zakłady Telewizyjne. The designers’ group was headed by inż. Lech Kwiatuszyński, and included engineers R. Nowicki, K. Mlicki and A. Malinowski. The Belweder provided the framework on which subsequent TV set models manufactured in Poland were based, including the Turkus, Szmaragd and Neptun. It was a modern design, allowing the selection of one of 12 channels and with a wired remote control.
In comparison with the earlier Wisła television set in which tuning was preset at the factory to one channel, the drum switch applied in the Belweder was a major breakthrough. It had 12 positions, eight for television channels, and the remaining four were intended for handling UHF sub-ranges. This allowed the Belweder to double as a radio receiver and receive the FM band between 87-100 MHz. Due to the high demand for television receivers, the production of Belweder OT 1481 began in 1958 outside of Warsaw – at Gdańskie Zakłady Radiowe Gezar in Gdańsk. Production of the Belweder ended in 1959.

Authors: Piotr Turowski, Filip Wróblewski

This enamel-coated, cast iron bathtub is a typical example of a sanitary device produced in the first half of the previous century. Bathtubs of cast-iron, i.e. a high carbon alloy of iron and carbon, and of ceramic gradually replaced the wooden and sheet-metal tubs used for bathing. That resulted from the development of modern water supply and sewerage networks in many cities. The process of enamel coating of iron and steel, which involves covering a surface with a powder and baking it at high temperatures until a uniform layer of glaze forms, was developed by David Dunbar Buick in around 1887. Today’s bathtubs are usually made of fibreglass or acrylic, which allows complex shapes to be formed that would be difficult to create using different materials. Acrylic was first used in the production of bathtubs in 1979 by brothers James and Richard Wheeler. The bathtub presented here comes from an apartment in a tenement house in Studencka street in Kraków.
Interesting fact: the first vessel that was documented to have a bathing function is considered to be a stone bathtub of the 16th century BC, located in the Royal Palace in Knossos on Crete.

References:
Historia wanny z kąpielą w tle, dom.wmw.pl web portal 15.06.2016, http://dom.wm.pl/363971,Historia-wanny-z-kapiela-w-tle.html (Accessed: 9.05.2021).
Who remembers David Dunbar Buick?, “Pre-war Buick” blog, http://www.prewarbuick.com/features/who_remembers_david_bunbar_buick (Accessed: 9.05.2021).

A television set is a device enabling the remote reception of moving images broadcast over radio waves. In Poland, production of TV sets began in 1956, at the Warszawskie Zakłady Telewizyjne (WZT). The first receiver was the Wisła, made under Soviet licence. It is a design inspired by the Awangard receiver. One of the many products of WZT of the 1960s is the Topaz black-and-white television set. Technically, the device is a modification of the Agat receiver of 1964. The Topaz was manufactured in versions with a 21” or 23” CRT, both of which were designs with a deflection angle of 110°, allowing the receiver to be put on a shelf or on a chest of drawers. In the case of older receivers with CRTs with smaller deflection angles, it was necessary to use deeper housings capable of fitting the longer cathode-ray tube. Unified Polish television sets, of which the Topaz is an example, set out a new direction for the development of Poland’s television industry, represented by three enterprises operating within the framework of the Unitra union: WZT, Zakłady Diora w Dzierżoniowie, and Gdańskie Zakłady Telewizyjne. The internal design of the television sets made by these manufacturers were based on technically unified components.
The unit presented here was acquired by the Museum’s collection in 1999.
Interesting fact: television sets with screen sizes of over 21 inches were considered luxury items. Apart from the larger screens, they had technical amenities not found in lower level devices, such as extensive automation systems reducing the need for manual adjustments, and additional sockets, e.g., for connecting an external speaker, earphones, tape recorder, or for remote control of the device.

Authors: Piotr Turowski, Piotr Żabicki