Auction Team Breker

Until the widespread advent of the wireless, barrel organs were a familiar sight (and sound) on the streets of Berlin and other major German cities.

Although the French inventor Charles-Xavier Thomas de Colmar introduced the first model of his calculating machine Arithmomètre in 1820, he waited some 30 years before he started producing them in series.

Guaranteed to attract attention at science and technical antiques specialist Auction Team Breker on November 6 was this remarkable Ericsson telephone.

The Parisian clockmaker Henri Lioret (1848-1938) entered the market for ‘talking machines’ in an unconventional fashion – his first patented device of 1893 was a talking doll.

As a rule, musical boxes, which were the favoured mode of reproducing music by mechanical means in the salons of Europe and the US during the 19th century, were more or less portable mechanisms.

Specialist auction house sells early versions hailing from the US

On October 12 Auction Team Breker in Cologne is holding a sale dedicated to antique office equipment. Among the distinctive pieces on offer is this Arithmomètre from 1865 guided at €3000-5000.

An example of the first commercially produced typewriter – one of only five in private hands – has sold for €100,000 at auction in Germany.

Philippe Fortuné Durand is regarded as the first professional photographer in France.

Gustave Vichy was probably the most accomplished manufacturer of automata in fin de siècle France. A prime example of his art is putting in an appearance at the May 20 sale of Auction Team Breker in Cologne.