Robin Johnson chose….

a phonograph  

I've always been interested in the latest gadget – especially those pieces of equipment that play sound, so this phonograph really caught my eye in the museum stores. In 1905 this was probably the 'must-have' appliance for the sophisticated music lover - I guess it was the iPod of its day. I love the cylinder that amplifies the sound, it's so wonderfully weird. This phonograph reminds of the 'Marvellous Mechanical Mouse Organ' from the TV series Bagpuss.

Robin Johnson is the Herbert's Senior Learning Officer

What the curator says:

Phonograph, collected in 1966

The phonograph was invented by Thomas Edison in 1877. It was the first ever machine for recording and reproducing sound. Music was recorded onto a wax cylinder and the sound was reproduced by a metal stylus or needle on the phonograph. The machine had to be wound up to be played. By the 1900s phonographs were cheaper and more widely available, but they were gradually replaced by the gramophone, which played a disc instead of a cylinder. This phonograph was made by the Excelsior Werke of Cologne.