A seashell-gramophone can anyone identify?

[snallast]

Hello again, this time something happier than dealers...

I bought this gramophone in the city of Kristianstad (which was where silent film had it's heyday in Sweden in the 1920ies) about 6 months ago. Asking around / the museums and auctionpeople etc. noone had ever heard of a production or even seen one like it before.

Anyone seen anything like it out there? It has a single-spring motor, no signatures or labels/brands anywhere. The sound which is really loud and clear comes out of the seashell and seems to be enhanced by the wooden backdrop.

Håkan

[Jerry B.]

What an interesting machine. I love the variety that European machines offer. Machines tend to look the same on this side of the water. Jerry Blais

[briankeith]

I agree totally with Jerry - machines on the other side of the pond make me drool sometimes. I have passed on buying some great machines on EBay-UK and EBay-France mainly because of the CRAZY HIGH COST of having them shipped to the USA in one piece. Ignore those UPS commercials showing the big brown truck delivering a small box to Iceland. Yep,,,, $350.00 US dollars for that small package which weighs only five pounds

[Norfolkguy]

What a beautiful phonograph! Thank you for sharing pictures of it.

[De Soto Frank]

The brake and speed control hardware appear to be Thorens ?

[Starkton]

Cute little machine! It reminds me to the Shell-O-Phone: http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... f=2&t=2155

[Steve]

Another interesting non-Victor, Edison, HMV machine! I think the "off-branders" have it of late!

I must say that this is a particular fine and rare piece and you would never find anything so weird or wonderful in the UK. Just flicking through one of the many Fabrizio & Paul books only goes to confirm that the vast majority of these oddities come from the wider Euro continent. Lately I seem to be glued to French Ebay. UK Ebay is a poor car boot sale (or yard sale?) in comparison.

On the subject of postage I find costs are high and generally rising everywhere. I've been quoted several times $45 to send a small elbow from the US to the UK. How can it cost THAT much?

[ImperialGuardsman]

I think I speak for all of us when I say:
1) record a video of it playing
2) upload to youtube
and 3) put the link on here.

[snallast]

That's a good idea, I'll post it playing, on youtube as soon as I get back to Swe - I´m in Spain now for a few weeks more!

[De Soto Frank]

So, it was really mollusks that invented the exponential horn, and not the Whiz Kids at Western Electric ?