Philco? (Gold) Transistor (Body) Hearing Aid
This hearing aid is totally unmarked, but it is obviously very
similar in size, shape and design to other Philco hearing aids. It is
quite similar to the Philco Mark II hearing aid of 1958, which was the
second of two transistor body aids made by Philco of Philadelphia, PA.
This hearing aid was quite small for the time and measured 1¾" x
1⅝" x ½" and weighed 1¼ oz. without
the battery.
It had a gold-colored anodized aluminum case and contained 3 transistors. The microphone
sat
behind the 4 "star bursts" grill (lower left front).
The front cover design was different from the Philco Mark II. The
Mark II had a "ribbed" design on the left and each microphone opening
was three small slots rather than the design shown here.
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Inside view of the Philco? (gold) with the front cover removed showing
the circuitry. Note the large microphone in the bottom left quadrant. |
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Top view of the Philco? (gold) showing the on-off/1-6 position volume control (left),
the receiver cord jack (center) and the two-position (High-Low) tone
control (right). The Philco Mark II had off-white controls rather than
the black ones of this hearing aid.
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The Philco? (gold) had a somewhat unusual plug for the receiver cord.
Instead of the two pin plug that was common (and used at the receiver
end), it used what looks like a standard audio plug, but it is slightly
bigger—just a bit over ⅛" in diameter. |
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The back of the Philco? (gold). The control functions are engraved on the
back of the case behind the controls to which they refer. In the upper
left corner is inscribed "Lo-Tone-Hi" and in the upper right corner,
"Off-Vol-On". Note that nowhere on this hearing aid is there any name
or model number. It is obviously a Philco product as it is so similar to
the Philco Mark II. In addition, the Philco
Mark II was gold-colored, suggesting that this is also a version of the Mark II. This
particular model may have been a "no name" brand that was sold by other
vendors. |
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The battery door on the Philco (gold) swung up and to the right from the
bottom right corner. This hearing aid used a 625 battery.
The clip across the front of the hearing aid could be used as a tie clip
with the hearing aid itself hidden under the tie. (One wonders how well
the microphone would pick up sounds with the tie covering the microphone
grill.)
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