Hurdy-gurdy twenty-three different forms, and there is still no standardized design today. The six-stringed French "vielle à roue" is the best known and most common sort. A number of regional forms developed, but outside France the instrument was considered a folk instrument and there were no schools of construction that could have determined a standard form. There are two primary body styles for contemporary instruments: guitar-bodied and lute-backed. Both forms are found in French-speaking areas, while guitar-bodied instruments are the general form elsewhere. The box form of the "simphonia" is also commonly found among players of early music and historical re-enactors.
Ye Olde Hurdy Gurdy Museum of Vintage Radio museum is an homage to a remark by Taoiseach Seán Lemass, who asked an RTÉ radio controller in the 1950s "How's the hurdy gurdy?". The exhibition includes artefacts relating to all forms of communication and related Irish historical events, including radios, early televisions, gramophones, and records. The Morse code-based amateur radio station, EI0MAR, operates from the museum. The story of curator Herbert and the museum was the subject of a 10-minute award winning film in 2014, "Hurdy Gurdy Man". Ye Olde Hurdy Gurdy Museum of Vintage Radio Ye Olde Hurdy Gurdy Museum of Vintage Radio is a museum of communication