I discovered a remarkable museum in a small Quebec town. Musee Edison
du phonographe has a really large (190 cylinder phonographs) and
interesting collection of early phonographs stuffed into a modest
building in Ste-Anne-de-Beaupre, the personal collection of a couple
(I believe they live upstairs).
They have foil phonographs, automatic changer cylinder phonographs,
dictation machine phonographs, phonographs in talking dolls, many
elaborately decorated external horns, related memorabilia, and even a
token player piano. I was given an excellent tour (entirely in rapid-fire
Quebecois French, but the brochure says they speak English, too) for
CAN$4 (US$3).
It is about 1/2-hour east of Quebec City. In my opinion, this place
merits a voyage if you are going to be anywhere in that part of the
world. It would be a good idea to call first and make sure that some will
be there when you arrive and that the someone speaks a language you
understand.
They have a web site: http://ceic.ceic.com:8087/BeauPre.html
The address is:
9812, rue Royale
Ste-Anne-de-Beaupre, Quebec, GOA 3CO
CANADA
home phone (418) 827-5957
office (418) 656-2131 x6954
fax (418) 656-7411
Meta Brown
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