Antique c. 1910s Gem Ear Phone Co. New York Carbon Hearing Aid, Cased with Earpiece & Batteries

An early carbon-type electric hearing aid by The Gem Ear Phone Company of New York, cased with its Bakelite earpiece, cords, and battery. Carbon hearing aids of the 1900s-1920s worked like a telephone circuit — a carbon microphone amplified sound electrically into the earpiece — and represented the first practical wearable electronic hearing devices, preceding vacuum tube aids. The Gem was among the notable New York makers of the period, and complete cased examples are increasingly hard to find.