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.