Electrum Museum

[mrboilwash]

Spent a couple of days in Hamburg and have been to an amazing little museum focused on the history of electric appliances.
The museum is a bit outside of Hamburg but easily accessible with public transportation.
It is only open to the public on Sundays, but so worth a visit. Staff is very welcoming and willing to explain everything. They are not employees, they live their dream. Only thing I have been asked for is not to touch anything but ask for assistance instead.
Looking forward to come back soon.
Of course I took a lot of pictures that have to be shared with the gang.

Let`s start with the washers

https://www.electrum-hamburg.de/

 

[mrboilwash]

The world`s first electric drill
Notice the wooden plug. Haven`t seen one thing in the museum that needed to be screwed into an Edison light socket.

 

[mrboilwash]

Cooking
The round thing on the bottom of the first picture is a refrigerator, not an oven.
It`s a Bosch from 1933, some say Bendix got inspired by the design.

 

[mrboilwash]

The most handsome fan I have ever seen

 

[mrboilwash]

#1 A scary instant water heater. Looks like it uses the the water pipe as a ground and neutral as there is only one wire coming from the plug...

#2 A shoe warmer

#3 Trivet

#4 Pot with a strange type of socket

 

[mrboilwash]

UV lamp

Ad for UV lamps "Healthy Mothers - Healthy Children"

 

[mrboilwash]

Arc lamp

Electric meters

Sampler

 

[mrboilwash]

Beauty saloon

Grooming something (I don`t know)

Boxes of electric blankets and heating stones on bottom. They had to be connected to current for a few minutes and then were taken to bed like a hot water bottle.

Cigar or cigarette lighters

 

[mrboilwash]

-Peter Behrens collection

-Some gems of toasters.
The top left one was dated to 1918, which may not be correct. I have seen this toaster as a McGraw Edison (which became General Electric ?) in the Edison museum in Fort Myers and they claimed it was the worlds first electric toaster. Patents were long before 1918 IIRC.

-Refrigerators

 

[mrboilwash]

Thanks for watching !

 

[mrboilwash]

One more to come

The first one is an extravagant TV HiFi combination

The second picture is if I remember correctly Germany`s first TV. I have been told there were two reasons you had to watch it over a mirror. The picture tube was going all the way down to the bottom of the cabinet. Secondly radiation levels were very high.

 

[cuffs054]

Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Yes, Thank you for sharing. I have seen pictures of early TVs here with the vertical picture tube. Wouldn't the engineers from back then be amazed by today's technology?!?!

 

[revvinkevin]

 

 

What a NEAT museum, thanks so much for sharing!   I'll have to add this to my "to-do" list if / when I ever make it to Hamburg.

 

Is there any chance you also visited the Miniatur Wunderland while in Hamburg?

 

 

[cfz2882]

my favorite items are the copper sphere washer and the fan in reply 3

 

[supersuds]

I don’t know about the toaster in the Edison place at Ft. Myers. As I recall, McGraw-Edison (Famous for Toastmasters) wasn’t formed until the late Fifties when McGraw bought the old Thomas A. Edison, Inc., and wasn’t a part of GE. Hotpoint, which was owned by GE, was called the Edison Electric Appliance Company until the 1930s, and probably also made toasters at some point. So the “Edison” toaster could have been made by either company I guess.

Wonder if the Santo fridge was built under GE license, or if they were just copying the Monitor Top look.

 

[mrboilwash]

Kevin, don`t miss it when you`re in Hamburg. It`s only a 5 minutes walk away from S-Bahn Harburg Rathaus and there`s way more to see than what you see in the pictures.

Haven`t been to Miniatur Wunderland, but my Brother also said I shouldn`t miss it the next time when I`m in Hamburg again.

John, I think I confused McGraw Edison with the Edison Electric Appliance Company. I can only tell for sure it was something Edison in the Edison museum ;-)
You certainly are onto something regarding the Santo fridge. Santo was the name of AEG fridges. AEG (Allgemeine Elektricitäts Gesellschaft) emerged from "Deutsche Edison Gesellschaft", so AEG might have built a lot more under license of Edison or GE in the beginning. I could imagine the toaster also made by AEG under license.

 

[vacbear58]

Musuem

Stefan

Thank you for posting the great pictures, it looks like a very interesting place to visit.

You are correct that the reason the old TV had to be looked at in a mirror is because the cathode ray tube was so long (almost a metre) that it was the only practical way, at the time, to watch television in a domestic setting. There must have been technological development during WW2 in the design of the tubes as this vertical arrangement is virtually unknown after that time. It was not unusual for a radio reciever to be included as well and also sometimes in larger and more expensive a turntable.

I love the picture of the "modern" TV too, which I am guessing woudl be very early 1960s

Al

 

[rolls_rapide]

Oooh nice!

@ Reply #8, Photo #3:

BBC 'Sigma' fridge? I'm guessing that's not the broadcaster?

Regarding the television tube vertical arrangement: I believe that was common, due to deficiencies in technology at the time (long-necked CRTs, poor deflection circuitry). The 1937 Radio Times has a Marconi version.