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Mayfair Gramophones / Ardath Tobacco Company ?

Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2017 3:30 pm
by Gramtastic
This seems quite weird... Bought this guarantee for a Mayfair portable gramophone and the guarantee is with Ardath Tobacco Co. Ltd ! A Google search of this cigarette manufacturer does not bring up any reference to them making gramophones. Any ideas ??

Re: Mayfair Gramophones / Ardath Tobacco Company ?

Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2017 4:32 pm
by OrthoFan
Apparently, cameras as well as gramophones were available as premiums if a certain number of stamps (collected in booklets) were acquired -- http://redbellows.co.uk/CameraCollectio ... ameras.htm

Sounds similar to the Green Stamps and Gold Stamps grocery stores in the US distributed. (My mom bought our first stereo through S&H Green Stamps back in the late 1960s.)

OrthoFan

Re: Mayfair Gramophones / Ardath Tobacco Company ?

Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2017 4:34 pm
by jamiegramo
Funnily enough the first gramophone I ever owned was a Mayfair Deluxe Portable. It was well built with a very good sound and I still think about it rather nostalgically. I was just a kid. I do know that Mayfair records were only available between 1931 and 1933. They were not sold but exchanged for Ardath cigarette coupons. I assume the portables were acquired in much the same way. Ardath stopped the offer in 1933 making the records short-lived.

Re: Mayfair Gramophones / Ardath Tobacco Company ?

Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2017 2:18 am
by Gramtastic
Thanks for the info - something else I have learned in this hobby ! So basically the good news was you had got enough coupons for a gramophone, the bad news was you'd probably got cancer .....

Re: Mayfair Gramophones / Ardath Tobacco Company ?

Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2017 2:02 pm
by epigramophone
May-Fair records were pressed from Edison bell, Panachord and Piccadilly masters. Some have "Under the direction of Christopher Stone" on the label. Christopher Stone was the BBC's first broadcasting reviewer of the latest gramophone records, what we would now call a disc jockey.