# A 1924 Mobile Telephone? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [February 26, 2004, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-1924-mobile-telephone/231257 "2004-02-26T07:45:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rico](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rico/32/3582_2.png) [@Rico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rico)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-1924-mobile-telephone/231257/1 "2004-02-26T07:45:49Z")
Yes, apparently the Bell System was testing a mobile phone system in 1924. I found [this photo](http://www.wayman.us/mobphone.jpg) of an early mobile phone in operation in 1924. Sort of makes you appreciate your miniature cell phone, huh? ---
**Author:** ![Dragwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dragwyr/32/2855_2.png) [@Dragwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragwyr)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 2:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-1924-mobile-telephone/231257/2 "2004-02-26T14:30:19Z")
It looks more like a 1920’s style dea… No! I can’t do it. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-1924-mobile-telephone/231257/3 "2004-02-26T15:22:51Z")
You can find a lot of references to early mobile phones in literature and movies. I remember being surprised to see Humphrey Bogart using one in the movie **Sabrina** – and that was as late as 1954. ---
**Author:** ![sturmhauke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e47c2d/32.png) [@sturmhauke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sturmhauke)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 3:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-1924-mobile-telephone/231257/4 "2004-02-26T15:55:39Z")
Looks more like a radio to me. Yeah, I know cell phones use radio waves, but it’s not really the same. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-1924-mobile-telephone/231257/5 "2004-02-26T16:07:19Z")
[Family Guy] Can you hear me _now_, Cornelius?.. Good." [/Family Guy] ---
**Author:** ![BMalion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e274bd/32.png) [@BMalion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BMalion)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-1924-mobile-telephone/231257/6 "2004-02-26T16:51:37Z")
Looks like somehing Doc Savage would use to track down the bad guys. ---
**Author:** ![AngelicGemma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 8:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-1924-mobile-telephone/231257/7 "2004-02-26T20:50:03Z")
I don’t think the word “mobile” is really appropriate to that phone. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 11:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-1924-mobile-telephone/231257/8 "2004-02-26T23:26:51Z")
It’s rarely remembered now, but before there were cell phones there were “car phones”, which were expensive, owned by relatively few people, and completely tied to one’s car. Steven Wright, the comedian, even had a joke about how he would like to have an answering machine for a car phone that said, “I’m sorry, I’m home now, but when I’m out again I’ll call you.” Then, in the eighties era of yuppie awareness, there was a song in which some jerk “has a bitchen car phone, he thinks he owns the road”. I’m sure that for the limo-owning class, car phones go back beyond the time of the movie _Sabrina_. ---
**Author:** ![cmkeller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmkeller/32/118_2.png) [@cmkeller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmkeller)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-1924-mobile-telephone/231257/9 "2004-02-27T05:09:06Z")
Boy, if that ain’t the ultimate argument for banning people from talking on their cell phones while driving, I don’t know what is… I suppose it could be more like a modern cell phone if there was a big Victrola horn attached to it, with a cylinder record ready to play the owner’s personalized ring-tone song… ---
**Author:** ![TheLoadedDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/35a633/32.png) [@TheLoadedDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheLoadedDog)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-1924-mobile-telephone/231257/10 "2004-02-27T11:59:01Z")
My grandfather was a telecommunications boffin in the mid twentieth century and he was in communications and signalling in WWII. Starting off as a linesman, he rose to become a senior figure in the government-monopolised Australian telco industry which was actually part of the post office then (he was a key figure in the replacement of operator-assisted long distance calls with direct dialling). Because of his position, he was able to get his hands on a car phone to give my mum a birthday greeting on her 21st birthday in 1956. According to her, the call was much like many of the calls yuppies would make three decades later: _Hello! I. am. calling. from. a. CAR PHONE! [sub]Oh yeah, and happy birthday.[/sub]_ I remember seeing an episode of the wonderfully cheesy _Professionals_ (a British late 70s action TV show) in which Gordon Jackson, playing whats-his-name, used a car phone. The thing sat in the middle of the back seat, and looked just like a household phone of the same era with a big dog’s bone type of reciever. In the 1930s, the Italians flirted with a land line car phone technology which involved driving up to a car phone “station” and plugging in, drive-in movie style. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [February 27, 2004, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-1924-mobile-telephone/231257/11 "2004-02-27T13:54:29Z")
And let’s not forget Maxwell Smart’s shoe phone. 😃