Jason Clarke Antiques has dated this piece to the 1880s.
The D hook attached to the brass bar would have been in turn suspended from a discharge rod in order for it to accept current. Owing to its design this example is most likely devised to hang directly onto a Ramsden or Nairne pattern machine but would have been equally suited to a Wimshurst machine with an appropriate stand.
The effects of the electrostatic discharge would excite movement in each bell and the effect would cause them to ring against one another every time a charge was passed through them.
A neat little electrostatic experiment and perhaps one of the most famous of all the curious parlour tricks that were devised for such machines during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.
Circa 1880
Jason Clarke Antiques has dated this piece to the 1880s.
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Victorian Electrostatic Machine Bell Experiment
