Telegraphic Time-signal Transmitter, Telephone

Telegraphic time-signal transmitter is a device to send a time signal at noon.

From the Central Telegraph Office in Kobiki-cho, Tokyo, the time signal at noon was sent to every telegraph office in Japan all at once through the telegraphic communication network.
In the front part of the machine, he inscribed, "1878, the Empire of Japan, Manufactured by Hisashige Tanaka".
The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876.
The following year, the first export of his telephone was sent to the Japanese Government.
In 1878, Hisashige Tanaka already made two telephone sets experimentally, and Choya Newspaper carried an article about these prototypes.
The telephone exhibited here is one of the telephones made by Tanaka Engineering Works during the early to middle Meiji era.
As you can see, Hisashige Tanaka manufactured telephones and various other electric machinery and greatly contributed to the technical modernization of Japan.
His factory/shop built in the Ginza renga-gai in 1875 signifies the founding of Toshiba.