GEC’s proprietary version of the 200 type telephone was called the Gecophone. Unlike the 200 type telephone with its separate bellset, the Gecophone was produced with an small integral bell in the base. Most Gecophones have noticeably different handset forks from the GPO 232 type.
However, it appears that a few early Gecophones had the traditional ‘stag’s antlers’ 200 type forks. Just to confuse things further, other companies than GEC later produced phones nearly identical to the Gecophone, such as the one produced by Ericsson Telephones for Telephone Rentals, shown in the third photo, and these always used the traditional 200 type forks.
The insides of Ericsson phones and true Gecophones are quite different. Earlier Ericsson models had the bottom of the front and back of the case cut away to let more sound out from the ringer. Telephone Rentals also had the innards of some of theirs replaced by TMC. The example here may be one of these. Though the inductor and bell coils look old, the capacitor is marked ‘TMC’. Just to confuse matters further, sets of the replacement innards were separately sold by J Bull Electrical in the 1980s and some of these have found their way into Gecophones.
The fourth photo shows an Ivory Gecophone with ‘tropical forks’. This phone is fitted with a buzzer, not bell, and rather like the ivory Muraphone was originally used on an ocean liner, when it would have been a manual phone with dial blank.
