Paris, France
Couesnon & Cie

Metals
ca. 1924
Length: 21 inches
Wind Instruments – Free Reeds

Engraved: COUSENOPHONE / Goofus / BREVETE SGDG / COUESNON & CIE / PARIS

Patented (No. 569294) in 1924 as a ‘saxophone jouet’ (saxophone toy), by a French manufacturer Couesnon, was this free-reed instrument resembling a saxophone called the ‘cousenophone,’ also known as the ‘goofus,’ or when anglicized it was called ‘queenophone.’  The reeds inside the mouthpiece cap vibrate when the player blows and presses the desired keys. 

Some may describe it as a mouth-blown accordion.  While shaped like a saxophone which is monophonic, the ‘cousenophone’ is a polyphonic instrument with more than one sound produced simultaneously.  Others may say it resembled the ‘harmonicor’ or Hautbois Nouveua (‘New Oboe’), that was patented by Louis Julien Jaulin of Paris around 1861, with its piston-like keys arranged in a similar manner to the keys of a piano that are seen here on the ‘cousenophone.’