This is the central important ‘reading’ mechanism from an Optophone and dates to c1920. First designed in 1913 by the English scientist and writer Edmund Edward Fournier D’Albe the Optophone was the world’s first optical reading machine and was intended for use by the blind to ‘read’ ordinary books. Although it would eventually prove to be an extremely influential invention, when released the Optophone managed to stir up plenty of publicity but regrettably very few sales. The key component was the small spinning siren disc which broke the light source up into pulses before it hit the page and could be read and interpreted by the nearby Selenium cell. It really was a very clever invention, but as Fournier was a scientist and not an Engineer it took until 1918 for the machine to be refined enough for commercial production with help from the Scottish instrument makers Barr & Stroud.
As Fournier failed to get the backing of the all important Blind Institutions who acted as gate-keepers to the Blind community it has been estimated that as few as a dozen of his machines were ever made and sold. Indeed I only know of two machines still in existence. The first was donated by the inventor to the UK Science Museum during the 19-teens, and the second is in the collection of the charity Blind Veterans UK.
As far as I can tell this very original and untouched part being offered is from Fournier’s ‘Black-Sounding’ Optophone as improved by Barr & Stroud between 1918-1920 (although interestingly this has a few tiny modifications not shown in existing drawings of the time). As such a rare invention I very much doubt I’ll ever come across another example again either in whole or part. If you want to read about how I stumbled into this item the other year you can read my blog post here. I have mounted this component onto an oak base for display.
Dimensions: wooden Base 15 cm x 15cm ; Component 7.8 cm wide x 10 cm deep x 20 cm high
