MG, with 40 employees and one telephone--the first telephones were installed in Frankfurt in 1881--at the outset traded in copper, lead, and zinc, later diversifying into nickel and aluminum. The firm Philipp Abm. Cohen had also been involved in silver trading, but abandoned this line in 1872, leaving the way open for the founding of the Deutsche Goldund Silber-Scheideanstalt (Degussa).