The donated Model 351 dates from 1954, when Bob Moog was just 20 and building instruments in his father's basement workshop.
The Bob Moog Foundation has added a rare R.A. Moog Model 351 theremin, built in 1954, to its archives in Asheville. Bob Moog was just 20 when the model went on sale, a year after his first commercial release – the Model 201, and the simpler, budget-focused Model 305.
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Tammy and Phil Niemeyer donated the theremin, originally bought by Tammy’s grandfather James Gray Everhart. James was a musician and engineer with a love of gadgets and bought the theremin in Sherman, Texas, around 1955. Family members recall him playing soft ballads by ear for friends.
The five-octave, vacuum tube-based Model 351 was hand-assembled in his father George’s basement workshop, like all of Moog’s instruments at the time. Its mahogany cabinet houses a volume control plate on the left and a pitch antenna on the right, with a silkscreened front panel hosting three separate volume knobs whose specific functions Moog left out of the operation manual, leaving players to work them out by ear.
Two four-position switches control what Moog called “Synthetic Format” – functionality missing from the stripped-down Model 305. The first switch shifts tone between Principal, Woodwind, Horn and String settings, while the second transposes pitch across Fundamental, Octave, Quint and Superoctave. A Pitch Adjustment knob fine-tunes from there. Unlike the self-contained Model 201, the 351 dropped its internal amp and speaker in favour of external outputs. Moog featured the model in his 1956 Audiocraft magazine piece, “Music from Electrons.”
“We are thrilled to have this extremely rare R.A. Moog Model 351 theremin as part of the Bob Moog Foundation Archives,” said Michelle Moog-Koussa, the Foundation’s Executive Director. “This stunning historical instrument helps us trace the evolution of Bob’s design ethic, while sharing the growth of his fledgling company.”
The Model 351 joins a collection that includes a 1954 Model 201, Herb Deutsch’s Melodia theremin, a 1962 Troubador theremin, two 1967 Moog modular synths and the first Minimoog Voyager ever sold, among more than 15,000 items housed at the Foundation’s Moogseum.
To learn more about the Bob Moog Foundation Archives, head here.
