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Siemens Grillo Shell Rotary Dial Telephone and Bell Set
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The Grillo telephone is generally thought to be the first 'clamshell' design. Like its less well-known stablemate the Rialto, the Grillo has a rotary dial with push buttons set into the fingerplate. In the same way as in the handset of the Canadian Contempra the size of the dial is reduced by the numbers being spaced evenly around the whole of the fingerplate,. The arc through which the dial has to rotate to provide the inter-digit pause and the first impulse is provided by placing the stop behind the fingerplate. In the Contempra the fingerstop rotates with the fingerplate to hit a hidden stop at the lowest point of the rotation of the dial. In the Grillo, the buttons in the fingerplate press down, causing a pin to project below the fingerplate which then hits the hidden stop. People unfamiliar with this design will often just press the buttons and wonder why nothing happens!
Incoming calls to the Grillo are signalled by a small buzzer mounted separately in what might now be called a 'wall wart', this small matching unit is shown in the video and plugs directly into an older type Italian 'tripolar' (three-pin) telephone socket. It is this discrete bell set that gives the telephone its name, being said to sound like a cricket or 'Grillo' in Italian.
Famously designed by Richard Sapper and Marco Zanuso, the Grillo was produced between 1967 and 1979 at the Milan factory of the Italian subsidiary of Siemens.
Used Grillos are still popular and bolder coloured examples especially can command substantial prices for a plastic telephone. Although the assembly feels fragile, broken examples seem rare, potential buyers should however make sure that the bell set is included in the sale as these can be lost.
An expedient to overcome the fact that tripolar Italian telephone sockets are no longer available, particularly outside Italy, is to obtain an ADSL filter, available from online sources, which has a three-pin 'plug-though' and an auxiliary RJ11 socket.
Incoming calls to the Grillo are signalled by a small buzzer mounted separately in what might now be called a 'wall wart', this small matching unit is shown in the video and plugs directly into an older type Italian 'tripolar' (three-pin) telephone socket. It is this discrete bell set that gives the telephone its name, being said to sound like a cricket or 'Grillo' in Italian.
Famously designed by Richard Sapper and Marco Zanuso, the Grillo was produced between 1967 and 1979 at the Milan factory of the Italian subsidiary of Siemens.
Used Grillos are still popular and bolder coloured examples especially can command substantial prices for a plastic telephone. Although the assembly feels fragile, broken examples seem rare, potential buyers should however make sure that the bell set is included in the sale as these can be lost.
An expedient to overcome the fact that tripolar Italian telephone sockets are no longer available, particularly outside Italy, is to obtain an ADSL filter, available from online sources, which has a three-pin 'plug-though' and an auxiliary RJ11 socket.