London Dome Shuttered Ear Trumpet (Ear Horn)
This "shuttered" London Dome ear trumpet was made by an unnamed
company. There are no manufacturer's marks on it.
Date of manufacture is unknown, but probably somewhere around 1900.
This shuttered ear trumpet was made of brass painted black.
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Right side view of the shuttered London Dome showing one of its two most
unusual features—the ear tip points to the right, parallel to the body
of the dome. In contrast, almost all other London Domes had the ear
tip sticking out at right angles to the body of the dome.
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Top view of the shuttered London Dome again showing how the ear tip is
parallel with the dome, rather than at right angles to it like was
normally done.
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Front view of the shuttered London Dome. The overall height of this London
Dome is 3 13/16" high by 2¼" in diameter. The height of just
the dome itself is 3½". It weighed 3.6 oz. (104 g).
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Rear view of the shuttered London Dome.
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View of the bell end of the shuttered London Dome showing an interesting pattern of sound holes—a
series of holes set in concentric circles. In this case, the sound holes
are of varying sizes as opposed to having all the holes the same size as
was usual for this era of London Domes. The shutter is in the open position.
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View of the bell end of the shuttered London Dome showing the rotating
shutter covering half of each of the holes. This is the second unusual
feature of this London Dome. Essentially, the shutter acted as a volume
control.
However, this rare feature was probably seldom used as people that
used hearing aids typically needed all the volume they could get.
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View of the bell end of the shuttered London Dome showing the shutter in
the closed position covering all the holes. |
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Close-up view of the front of the bell of the shuttered London Dome
showing the slider knob in the horizontal groove. It was used to open or
close the shutter. Depending on how much you moved the slider knob,
you could set the shutter to cover as little or as much of the holes as
you wanted to control the volume.
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Close-up
View of the front of the bell of the shuttered London Dome showing
the only inscription on this dome. It reads "PAT. AP'D FOR", the
abbreviation for "patent applied for". |
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Close-up view of end of the ear tip of the shuttered London Dome. The ear piece is made of bakelite
or hard rubber (gutta percha). As was common, the inside diameter of the
hole was a shade under ¼" in diameter.
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