If you are in Onomichi, this is a must see. We were told to have a drink at this bar and not much more. When we first walked in, we saw what looked to be an awesome shell collection, but it is much more. The owner and his wife are obsessive collectors. He is eighty one years old and as a ten year old boy, started collecting the decorative steel needle boxes for the old phonographs. He still has the first box he started with. He then moved on to records. When you get into the main room there are dozens of antique phonographs and jazz memorabilia mixed in with all the shell items. He even has an original Edison phonograph that used the wax cylinders before the vinyl records were invented. He played this for us and we were amazed at the sound quality. And of course now we had him hooked. He then went on to show us his favorites. One of the coolest was a portable hand crank record player. Made in the early fifties, it folds down into a small box of about 6x4x5 inches but folded out erector set style to play 78's records. We listened to a Benny Goodman record that was again awesome in sound quality and volume. We joked it was one of the fore runners for the Sony Walkman!
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| The bar with its shell collection |
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| More shells |
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| The antique Edison with its wax cylinder |
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| The portable hand crank record player |
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