Yamaha Electone D-1

You’re looking at the beginning of an incredible success story.

Yamaha began its Electone series in 1959 with this D-1. In just a few decades, an almost inconceivable variety of models of the home and entertainer organ had been released.

Eventually, millions of enthusiasts learned how to best coordinate their hands and feet in Yamaha’s self-established organ schools.

A few details of this Yamaha D-1 are signs of an ambitious design that fell victim to simplified line production over the years. For example, a slightly concave bass pedal that makes perfect sense, even with a range of just an octave.

Or these two movable wooden bolts for ease of transportation, which were replaced by handle cut-outs on the back panel in later models in an effort to cut corners.

However, we always have to hide this D-1 away in the warmer seasons. A lot of museum visitors mistake the stop switches for popsicle sticks!

And our fine specimen really doesn’t deserve that treatment. :-)