I don’t see LEGO as a toy anymore. I see it as a visualization tool, a physical pixel, a model-making apparatus, and potential home decor. LEGO comes in the form of toys, deeply detailed prototypes, pop memorabilia, and even flowers that you can place around your house. The potential of LEGO is endless, and nothing captures that better than the LEGO Ideas community, which continuously surprises with their creations.
This one from Superminister captures the beauty and grandeur of the old-timey gramophone, which preceded every music device we use today. The turntable played discs, the horn acted as a speaker, and the entire thing became a mainstay in every music aficionado’s house. Or for the people who could afford it. For the rest, there was the radio. This LEGO build stays true to the gramophone’s gorgeous design, and comes with the horn, a rotating table, a tonearm, a switch to start/stop the disc, even a switch to alternate between RPMs, and finally, a drawer for keeping spare discs.
Designer: Superminister
Given it’s made from LEGO bricks, this gramophone isn’t to size, but the tiny form factor still manages to capture all the detail you really need. You see, this was a pre-electricity appliance, in the sense that it didn’t need a socket or electrical power to work. You’d hand-crank the gramophone, storing kinetic energy in the gramophone, which would then spin once you loaded the disc. Once the disc began spinning, you’d load the needle onto its grooved surface, and the vibrations would literally create music, which would amplify through the gramophone’s horn.
Superminister’s build captures all these nuances, with moving components no less. You can load a disc, add the needle, and while there’s no spring-load motor, the hand-crank directly powers the turntable. The start/stop switch is for show, but it does flip on and off, giving the gramophone its tactile appeal. Obviously, the LEGO gramophone doesn’t ‘play’ music, but it plays the part of a functional device very well, working the same way this LEGO lawnmower did, or this LEGO Turing Machine.
“The most challenging part of designing the model was the large golden horn. I ended up using panel pieces typically found in recent LEGO car sets! These pieces ultimately determined the overall scale of the model,” said LEGO builder Superminister. The entire build uses a stunning 2,056 bricks, including even the multiple records that get stored in the drawer. Schematically, this thing is on point, and it’s just a hop-skip-and-jump away from being an actual record player. I’m guessing a few minor modifications could actually have this gramophone play tunes!
With nearly 8,000 votes, the LEGO Ideas Vintage Gramophone is just inches away from hitting the 10k vote mark, following which the MOC (My Own Creation) will get sent to the LEGO internal team for review, before it hopefully gets turned into a retail box set. If you want to see this build come to life (or if you want to throw money at LEGO and procure this kit), you can head down to the LEGO Ideas website and cast your vote!
