Collection of twenty-seven assorted sound effect instruments including horns, bird call boxes, bells, whistles, castanets, triangles, cowbells, clappers etc. of various types and sizes, contained in a large nested suitcase, many of the instruments with period "Property of CBS" labels. The case inscribed "Marilyn Youakim," a name we have not been able to positively connect with the collection's history, and measuring 14 x 24 x 8.75 inches (35.5 x 61 x 22.2 cm) [Shipping box: 29x24x14 inches]. Generally in apparently very good condition with expected wear from use. Untested. 

An extraordinary collection of early sound effects instruments, used at CBS radio where Ora Nichols and others pioneered sound effects in American radio broadcasting and created many sound-producing methods.

"Radio drama has been accurately described as “the theater of the mind,” and the success or failure of any given program was in direct relationship to its ability to involve the radio listeners imagination....Radio's preoccupation with a constant “something” being on the air was becoming annoying to an audience that was accustomed to forms of entertainment where they knew exactly what was going on at all times. The novelty of hearing music and voices "magically without any wires" was beginning to pall. Now they wanted to be entertained.

As radio scurried desperately about to fill this need, it made a rather obvious but nethertheless startling discovery. Up until now radio had been so preoccupied with imitating the more familiar forms of entertainment found in the theater that it hadn't had time to realize what radio had to offer was unique.

Unlike the theater, radio didn't need expensive and elaborate costumes. It didn't need makeup or props. It didn't even need scenery or exotic locations. Radio had something better . . . the listeners imagination! All radio had to do to avail itself of this magical world fantasy was to create images through the suggestion of sound. After all, if a white man could convincingly portray the part of a black woman simply by the way he made his voice sound, why couldn't this illusion be applied to things?

Ironically, when it was decided to use sound effects on radio, it also was discovered that there is virtually no one in broadcasting with either the necessary experience or equipment. As a result, early radio again turned to the theater....

Another valuable source of sounds and techniques was found in the musical theatres of vaudeville and burlesque: the house band’s trap drummer. These talented musicians were called “trap” drummers because in addition to their musical function with the orchestra, these versatile gentlemen were required to have all sorts of small props, or trappings, on hand to satisfy any sound effect needs the various performers might have in their acts. Because of the popularity of this type of entertainment, the shows at these theaters ran almost continuously, with little or no time to rehearse new acts. It therefore was not unusual for these drummers, in lieu of rehearsals, to receive such verbally descriptive instructions from the incoming new acts as: “Give me a simple crash and a bird Twitter when I hit my wife in the rear end with my fiddle!”...

While early radio owed many thanks to those trap drummers, the two people most responsible for developing SFX into an art form and radio and for training others were Ora Nichols, CBS, New York, and Lloyd Creekmore, KHJ, Hollywood." (Robert L Mott. Sound Effects: Radio, TV and Film. 1996., pp. 1 - 7)