The music collection of the City Museum of Rijeka is one of the most complete, most attractive and systematically collected music collections, which preserves in its holdings attractive examples of jukeboxes, pianos, radios, acoustic and electric record players produced within a range of almost a century and a half. The oldest jukebox in the collection dates from 1870, a Polyphon jukebox with accompanying metal discs was produced in Germany ten years later, while a real revolution in music arose in 1878 with the invention of the phonograph by T.A. Edison, a 1900 copy of which is kept in the holdings. Our holdings also include one of the two oldest turntables with a small copper trumpet existing in Croatia, made by the inventor and manufacturer of turntables and gramophone records E. Berliner, some extremely popular turntables with floral trumpet speakers, made by reputable manufacturers such as Columbia or Exelsior, practical portable record players and so-called cabinet turntables housed in stylish cabinets made by the still existing respectable German companies Dual or Grundig. In addition to acoustic and electric record players, we also keep about five hundred gramophone records, among which we would highlight very rare records of coastal folk songs such as Marica divojko, Dobrinje bili grad on shellac records published by Edison Bell Electron. Particularly interesting are seven gramophone records from a limited edition called Ethnophilia published by Jugoton.
Collection manager: Nada Sabljić