Description and research notes
Early 1911 invoice from The Odeon Hall in Cairo, one of the city’s most modern pre-war establishments combining gramophone sales, watchmaking, and luxury retail. Issued for the repair of a gold watch, the bilingual French–Arabic letterhead advertises phonographs, records, and precision horological services, reflecting Egypt’s rapid adoption of European technology and leisure culture.
The typographic layout shows a refined pre-war commercial aesthetic: bold trade name, French descriptions with Arabic equivalents, and clean alignment. Handwritten Arabic entries specify the repair performed and the amount charged, with final settlement noted at the bottom. The piece captures the overlap between early recorded sound and traditional watchmaking in Khedivial Cairo.
Documents from The Odeon Hall are seldom encountered, and this example—dated, detailed, and fully intact—is among the finest known. It is a key artifact of early 20th-century Egyptian consumer history, illustrating how Armenian and European merchants shaped Cairo’s technical and cultural landscape before World War I.