In the late 1930s, Europe was about to blow up… again. History has documented all the advances and retreats of Nazi Germany in military development, but outside that sphere, there were other creations that even extended beyond the regime. One of them is the Tefifon, an audio format accompanied by its own player that reads non-magnetic tapes, and in the best cases, could hold up to four hours of audio.
A German Invention from 1936
The year was 1936. Germany was organizing the Berlin Olympics, and it would be for a long time the only glimpse of peace the world was going to enjoy. The following years became a dark era that saw the world's great powers pour almost all their resources into the military effort, though there were also other developments not strictly associated with warfare. The most well-known example today is the classic Beetle, Volkswagen Type 1, and some radio enthusiasts may remember the Volksempfänger, yet there was something else from the private market. That same year, Dr. Karl Daniel, founder of the Tefi company, created the Tefifon audio format. Its basic technology was already available in other devices for the military, but with the war in the middle, commercial solutions based on the Tefifon were delayed until the late 1940s.
How It Worked
Its concept is similar to that of the gramophone, with an important difference: Instead of reading grooves on the surface of a disc, the Tefifon does so on an infinite tape stored in special cartridges. In other words, the Tefifon has a bit of gramophone and a bit of eight-track cartridge (without the magnetic aspect, of course). The cartridges came in different sizes, and the largest could hold up to four hours of audio. This detail made the Tefifon an interesting option for long works (such as operas) and learning courses (for example, language learning), but music was undoubtedly its weak point. Popular artists of the time had exclusive contracts with their record labels, which showed no interest in adapting their records to Tefifon tapes. Consequently, the vast majority of options were covers by little-known singers and local bands.
The Legacy of the Tefifon
Some Tefifon players have been seen in very good condition, which gives us an indication of the quality of their construction. Needless to say, the format never fully took off. People had already adopted records as their preferred medium for listening to music, and it was exported for only one year to the United States, starting in 1963, until its production ended in 1965. If you're interested in expanding your retro collection in a different way, it's still possible to find several Tefifon units online.
