florophon

[John Demetrick <jdemetrick@xxxxxxxx>]

No joke. An advertisement in the Romanian newspaper UNIVERSUL from
1907 states:

Florophon, flowers that sing and talk. new. elegantly designed.
approximately 1.5 meters tall. Inquiries: Bruder Lourie, Viena XX/5
Gerhardusgasse 28

The "device", as much as the illustration is accurate looks like an
ordinary flower stand, only the "flowers" look more like ostrich
feathers or ferns.

My first thought was that it must simply be a music box attached to a
flower stand but...considering that the advert states "flowers that
sing and TALK" and the term "florPHON" is used, I was wondering if
perhaps it was some sort of combination disc/cylinder player -
artificial flower/ostrich feather home decorating piece.

Any of you ever heard of such a device?

John
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John C DeMetrick
CP 28 OP 1                                Industrial
3400 Cluj-Napoca, Romania                 !!WANTED!!
Tel: (40) (064) 124-330                   Postcards!
<jdemetrick@xxxxxxxx>
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