"My personal business is giving commercial value to the brilliant - but misdirected - ideas of others," Thomas Edison once said. Though Edison may have invented the first record player (the phonograph), it was Delaware's own Eldridge Reeves Johnson who capitalized on its perfection. Johnson was also the one to recognize opportunity in a little story that Edison scoffed at, which goes a bit like this:

A long, long time ago, British artist Francis Barraud had a brother named Mark, who died destitute and alone in 1887. Mark bequeathed two things to Francis: his gramophone and his dog, Nipper.

The deceased had made a cylinder recording of his own voice (one of Edison's many inventions), which Francis played at Mark's funeral on Mark's phonograph, which rested atop Mark's casket. The dog sat on the casket, too, loyal to the end, listening inquisitively to his (dead) master's voice.

Francis was inspired, and three years later he dashed off a painting of the scene, which he attempted to peddle to Edison in hopes of making enough money to at least buy dog food. The Edison Bell Company dismissed him promptly as nuts, with a parting jeer: "Dogs don't listen to phonographs."

Doggedly, Francis returned to his tiny studio and painted over the phonograph, covering it with an image of a gramophone, a similar but divergent "talking machine" invented by Emile Berliner. Whereas Edison's machine used cylinders to record and play music, Berliner's used discs, which were faster and less complicated to produce than cylinders (Edison also scoffed at Berliner's discs, which in the hands of the cutthroat recording industry of the early 1900s evolved into the vinyl records we know so well). Unable to sell the gramophone concept to Edison, Berliner sold it to Johnson, who successfully modified it with an innovative spring-driven motor crank, then trademarked it in 1901 as the Victrola. Unlike Edison's phonograph, the Victrola did not have to be wound continuously while playing. Music would never be the same.

Johnson and Berliner's Gramophone Company also delightedly snapped up Francis' painting for 50 pounds, then painted over the coffin handles and plastered Nipper the dog over every advertisement for Victor Victrolas. Nipper was a huge hit, the Victrolas sold like crazy, and Francis spent the rest of his life painting 24 more copies of "His Master's Voice" in various forms.

The original painting now hangs in EMI Music's Gloucester Place headquarters, and when the light hits it right you can just make out the phonograph and even the coffin handles hidden beneath the top layer of paint. Or so the legend goes down at the Johnson Victrola Museum.

All this fascinating information and more about Johnson's "pleasure-giving machines" can be gleaned from inside a small, unassuming building in the heart of Delaware. For the bargain price of nothing you can tour the current 20 percent of Johnson's gramophone collection on display. It includes one of 13 remaining compressed air-driven dance hall Victrolas, the first talking dolls (made with Edison recording cylinders) and the revolutionary cabinet and orthophonic gramophone designs that made Johnson's Victrola a household name.

More than 42,000 records, also made by Victor, are on hand at the museum. If you're lucky, the gracious guides may crank up a tune or two. Information also abounds regarding the evolution of the recorded music industry, fueled by the competitive gramophone companies of the early 20th century. If you haven't been, go, and if you have, go again, if only to dance to the Blue Danube played on an original orthophonic Victor Victrola.

- The Johnson Victrola Museum is located at the corner of Bank and New sts., Dover. Hours: Tues. - Sat., 10 am - 3:30 pm. (739-4266)