Twinfone This acoustical telephone device was manufactured beginning around 1947 and continuing to the 1970s by the Telephone Devices Company, Inc. of Lynbrook, New York. The Twinfone permitted a person using the telephone to listen with both ears or let a second person listen in on the conversation. Since it was just a hollow tube connecting two ear pieces, this device provides no amplification. In fact, there is some attenuation in the tube. Thus the second ear only receives about half the volume of the first ear by the time the sound reaches it. In order to help people with a significant hearing loss, the Twinfone would have worked better with an amplified phone. (As a matter of interest, I found I could hear quite well using the Twinfone on my amplified phone and holding the remote end to my other ear.) |  | Click picture for larger view | | |   | | |
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| This end of the Twinfone attaches to the phone receiver. the sound from the phone receiver comes through the 4 holes in the center. You hold this side against your ear. |  | Click picture for larger view | | | |
| The side of the remote Twinfone that you put up to your ear. The sound from the phone travels up the rubber tube and come out of the center of this earpiece.
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| At the right is a copy of the earliest ad found for the Twinfone. This ad was published in the July 1947 edition of Popular Mechanics, on page 57. |  | Click picture for larger view | | | |
| Display ad in the December, 1949 issue of Popular Science magazine—on page 166. |  | Click picture for larger view | | | |
| This ad was published in the April 1957 edition of Popular Science, on page 72 At this time they were looking for people to sell the Twinfone and make money. The latest ad found for the Twinfone was in the 1970 Science Digest on p. 99. The ad read, "TWINFONE New scientific two-party listener, acoustical amplifier shuts out noises, aids hearing, fits any phone. Needed everywhere. Hi profit. Sample $2. Free details. Engles, Four Oaks, NC" | |
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| The top of the box explains how to use it so two people can hear the same conversation, or how one person can hear with both ears.
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| The side of the box shows how to hook the Twinfone to any telephone receiver. The box states, “The Twinfone is an excellent hearing aid help for the hard of hearing.”
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