Stollwerck Chocolate Records from 1903

A few days ago, I came across a video posted on Instagram by the Phono Museum in Paris, in collaboration with Culture Prime and France Musique. It featured an object that sounds like something out of a fairy tale: a chocolate record made by Stollwerck. A real record you could play on a phonograph, then eat. I wanted to know more, and the story is well worth telling.

A chocolate maker with a friend named Edison

It all starts in Cologne, at Stollwerck, a chocolate company founded in 1839 that grew into one of Germany's confectionery giants. At its helm was Ludwig Stollwerck (1857-1922), an entrepreneur with a passion for new technology. He had already installed thousands of chocolate vending machines across Germany. In 1895, he founded the Deutsche Edison Phonographen Gesellschaft in Cologne, together with Thomas Edison himself, to distribute the phonograph in Germany.

So the chocolate maker had, on one hand, one of the most fascinating machines of his time and, on the other, a factory that could mold just about anything out of chocolate. Starting in 1903, Stollwerck sold what the company called "talking chocolate."

A pocket-sized phonograph

The first machines, made in late 1903, were lithographed tinplate. They stood about 8.5 inches tall, horn included, and the turntable was barely 3 inches across. A small Junghans clockwork motor turned the record, and a glass stylus followed the groove. Collectors are not kind to this machine: a noisy, underpowered motor, mediocre sound, and a stylus that broke easily.

In France, the same machine was sold by Kratz-Boussac under the name "Eureka," with no mention of Stollwerck at all.

So what exactly were people playing?

This is where the sources differ a bit. Some collectors describe edible chocolate records, with the groove cut directly into the chocolate. According to London's Science Museum, the groove was actually stamped into the foil wrapped around the chocolate. Either way, the idea was the same: listen first, then eat.

According to the Science Museum, the set was sold as a Christmas gift for children, and each chocolate record came with a wax record so the song could still be played once the chocolate was gone. The London museum holds one of these phonographs, dated 1903. Only its wax record survives, carrying the military tune "British Grenadiers." The chocolate was most likely eaten by its first owner.

Stollwerck also produced records made of "karbin," an inedible wax, and in 1904 a sturdier model. This phonograph had a wooden base, a sapphire stylus, and records about 4.75 inches across, made of wood composite with a waxy coating. These records didn't break, but their grooved surface eventually flaked off. Only 5,000 of this model were sold, and Stollwerck dropped the phonograph to go back to chocolate. Production lasted only about two years.

The Phono Museum, an address to remember

Very few of these records have survived. The Phono Museum in Paris displays a Stollwerck chocolate record, as part of an impressive collection. The museum was opened in September 2014 at 53 boulevard de Rochechouart, in the 9th arrondissement, by Jalal Aro, a collector and phonograph specialist. It is run by the Phonoplanète association and staffed by volunteers.

The museum holds around 300 machines, all in working order. The tour goes from the earliest recording devices of 1857 all the way to the MP3, with cylinder phonographs, horn gramophones, tape recorders, and CD players along the way. The museum sits at the foot of Montmartre, between La Cigale and Le Trianon. It is usually open Fridays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and by appointment on other days. Before you go, check the hours and prices on the Phono Museum website. Admission fees mainly cover the rent, so every visit genuinely helps keep the place open.

If you enjoy this kind of oddity, my guide to sound tourism and acoustic curiosities should give you more ideas for places to visit.

To keep the journey going

The chocolate record is just one episode among dozens of inventions, successes, and dead ends in the history of sound. If you want to follow it from the very beginning, I've written a complete guide to the history of sound recording. I also tried to pin down what "sound recording" really means.

And because objects disappear along with their sounds, I collect the clicks and whirs of yesterday's machines in my Museum of Lost Sounds. The Phono Museum preserves the machines, and I try to preserve their sounds.

What about you? Did you know about these records you could eat? Have you ever visited the Phono Museum, or another sound museum that left an impression on you?