Variant!

Because of the success of the Stylophone, a few companies attempted to come up with a rival (or cheaper) instrument.
The similarities on the model below are obvious to see........

This is a 'CHARLIE', made in Hong Kong for the German market around the mid to late '70s. The size is very similar to the Stylophone, at about half-inch bigger in length and width.

Common Stylo features are there:

There is one big difference however in the playing of the instrument - NO STYLUS!.
In place of the normal keyboard is a plastic 'membrane' affair. The idea is that you simply TOUCH the keyboard to play it. A little pressure is all that is needed to get the note you want, and you can run your finger up and down the smooth 'keyboard' with ease.

The ease with which you could play a recognisable tune however, may be a different matter.
A human finger is considerably larger than the standard stylus used on the genuine article, so you may find yourself hitting notes you didn't intend to.
You could always use the 'wrong end' of a ball point pen to play the notes, but the keyboard is just thin plastic covering the paper-printed keyboard layout, so anything other than a finger would probably wear it out in no time. Anything sharp would certainly mark - or even tear this plastic.

It's cheap, cheerful...... let's be honest.... it's tacky!.
The design is obviously taken from the Stylophone of course, but the 'soft touch' keypad takes the concept a little further.

I'm really surprised this particular example has survived the years with the keyboard still intact.

The idea of including this model amongst these Stylophone pages however is not just to slate it.
The simple fact that an instrument such as the Stylophone should attract manufacturers to try and come up with an alternative based around the Dubreq design is testament to just how successful the Stylophone was over the years.

Because of this, the 'CHARLIE' deserves some space here on the site.

On/Off switch
Vibrato switch
Output
9v battery power

Partly disassembled, the flexible keypad overlay is gently folded back to show the board contacts.

Speaker is held in place by someone going barmy on the plastic with a soldering iron

Output, volume control, and 9v adaptor socket.

a 'slide - on' battery cover, very similar to those models seen on the 'Hong Kong' page

same layout of on/off and vibrato controls

The sound this circuit layout creates can be likened to a cat - being trod on.
The tonal scale is very high; one octave higher than Dubreq's own 'treble' model !