But sadly no longer today. We have, however, just received this advert which shows the Stollwerk machine that played chocolate discs was being actively marketed “for the Christmas table” in Germany in 1904. More information about these chocolate discs (& more recent experiments in literally sweet sounds) in our earlier post, here.
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Hmmm…. it says ‘Stollwerck speaking chocolate’ — I don’t need a chocolate to call to me; unfortunately the chocolate bars in my fridge summon me well enough on their own…
Nevertheless, how I’d like one of these gizmos!
This wikipedia entry from Germany talks a bit more about the chocolate record players
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sprechende_Schokolade
According to the article, they were manufactured from 1903, and a huge hit at Christmas. Model A, as you see in the advert above, was handcranked, and Model K had a wind-up motor. Apparently Edison and Stollwerk met in the 1890s and hit it off, and so naturally combined forces. Apparently you could buy over 100 different little chocolate records to play on your phonograph (at 60 [1903] pfennig each), and at least one of the models could be adapted to play regular little records made out of rubber.