Unusual Edison W250

[OrthoSean]

And I just noticed something pretty cool, my W-250 and Phongal's are just 10 numbers apart, that's pretty cool!

Sean

[fran604g]

And I just noticed something pretty cool, my W-250 and Phongal's are just 10 numbers apart, that's pretty cool!

Sean

That's neat!

[phonogal]

And I just noticed something pretty cool, my W-250 and Phongal's are just 10 numbers apart, that's pretty cool!

Sean

Thank Sean. Looks just like mine.

[fran604g]

I think this is way simpler than some of us want it to be.

The "blackened-metal with orange highlights" finish we see on the Victor R, some Amberola I examples, and some A-150s, is created by partially buffing away a metal surface darkened by a chemical oxidation process to reveal and brighten the copper underneath, to create a decorative effect. It was done to varying levels of detail depending upon the desired effect and the whim/skills of the worker doing the buffing. Frow and some Edison literature call this finish "oxidized bronze" but there is no standardized name for it.

I'm a little OCD on that particular finish. As a bit of a side hobby, I've collected and retrofitted our 1912 house with much hardware and many accessories in this finish: switch plates, heat registers, lighting fixtures, kick plates, doorstops, doorknobs and locksets, push plates, hinges, cabinet latches, drawer pulls, window hardware, and even a doorbell. Plenty of it has been new old stock in original packaging, so I can say there are plenty of names used to label items with the finish, like:

- Antique Copper
- Antique Copper Plated
- Old Fashioned
- Oxidized Copper
- Antiqued Finish
- Coppery-Doppery-Doo

Well, maybe I made that last one up. And you see it called lots of other things today on eBay and elsewhere, like copper flash and flashed copper and tiger copper - and the completely erroneous japanned. And none of my NOS packaging has ever called it "oxidized bronze."

This finish was most popular before 1920, and there may be a link to its decline if we consider copper as a strategic material during WWI, but that's speculation on my part. Let's call it the "Early" finish.

So what was next? The regular nickel and gold finishes of course persisted on the DD machines, and then in the early 20s and continuing into the Edison radio/phonograph era, a new finish emerged, with a silky silvery grey metal base and yellowish highlights. Most of the yellowy highlights are consistent in their pattern, usually longitudinal fat stripes on the horn neck and reproducer stem, and roughly symmetrical bands on the edges of the reproducer shell and weight - as seen in some of the earlier pictures in this thread. They are not complex or ornate like the curlicues or circles sometimes found with the Early finish. Let's call this one the "Later" finish.

How did they create the effect of the Later finish? It's really hard to say, at least not without diving into the Edison archives. I've never seen it anywhere, except specifically on Edison diamond disc and radio/phonograph phono hardware. It's a handsome look and I'd imagine the public appreciated it for its uniqueness. It isn't plated, it isn't applied...so I'm going to propose it's a similar process to the Early, just more subtle and consistent. And that means chemical or electrochemical alteration of the surface (we can likely assume the term oxidation applies here too) with manual modification to bring up the highlights.

So let's say those same workers who had done Early a few years before were now set to doing Later finishes on the new hardware. But maybe the buffing didn't work to the same fineness of line, so they went to the "rounded/squared blotches" look of the two early W-250s shown earlier in this thread (I have several non-phono pieces at home with the same sort of pattern, but done in the Early finish). Or maybe the design people just recognized that styles had changed and the highlights needed to become...subtle and consistent.

I think the serial numbers (and the Duncan Stops and W-250 rather than W-19 tagging) are the key. Both are thus very early examples of the Later finish, and are therefore simply evidence of the factory feeling its way to a final configuration. In my opinion they are definitely factory original finishes, and as such, interesting early variants.

If/when the third early W-250 example is unburied, we may know more, but I think we already have the answer.

A chicken by any other name is still a bird?

It's interesting to see how a particular type of aesthetic was marketed by competing factions. Everyone wanted their slice of the pie. They still do. I would comment that without me knowing definitively the processes used by the various manufacturers to achieve their particular finish "look", the "early", and "later" versions of the two Edison finishes we're discussing are pretty distinctly different.

I'm sure the end result (whatever the process) was likely a function of frugality, and efficiency streamlining. During 1919, it seems the Edison co. had further expressed the level of efficiency in manufacturing that they had begun after the fire of December 1914 -- at least with the Diamond Disc Phonographs. Cabinet designs were simplified, cheapened, and some components were further standardized (think record storage using those cheap, dratted paperboard dividers).

In my opinion, the "later" Antique finish, though not as interesting as the ornate earlier Oxidized Bronze finish, probably would have been simpler, and less expensive to produce, and maintain consistency. Is it possible that it's at least partially a paint-like application? I'm talking specifically about the horn throat, and other hardware -- not the reproducer.

I'm semi-convinced that the finish illustrated on these 4 W&M's must have been a transitional one.

Another point to consider is that these machines wouldn't have been produced during a short period of time in late 1918, as production "...was reduced to only 3 models during 'the last four months of 1918...to the C-250, C-150, and Amberola 50'" (see The Edison Chippendale C 250 and its successor: The C 19, Part IV). WWI created an environment of shortages, and certainly the Edison Co. wasn't immune to the exigencies.

So then, by process of elimination, they would've likely been only produced between January 1917 (because of the presence of the Electric Automatic Stop), and August 1918.

I wonder if any other models (D.D., or Amberola Phonographs) have been observed with this finish?

[phonogal]

It would help us figure it out if we knew there were other W250 out there between the serial numbers of these 4 with a different finish on them. Looks like we may need a few more examples.

[fran604g]

It would help us figure it out if we knew there were other W250 out there between the serial numbers of these 4 with a different finish on them. Looks like we may need a few more examples.

Absolutely. I'll pay better attention to the W&M through my ongoing Chippendale research as well. I'm sure there will be seen parallels in regard to production trends that could help us deduce certain facts.

Would you consider starting a registry, or a so-called database post, perhaps separate of this post, and to also include the W-19? It might make sense to expand the topic to include a more in-depth query, i.e.: Cabinet Factory No., record storage system type, E.A.S., OLM medallion type, dataplate manufacturing material, other distinctive features, etc.

It could be included in the sub-forum with other information gathering topics. http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... =4&t=28941

Best,
Fran

[phonogal]

Not sure how to do that on the forum. Could I use your C250 example? I can keep a data sheet.

[fran604g]

Not sure how to do that on the forum. Could I use your C250 example? I can keep a data sheet.

Certainly, although I don't know how much of my questionnaire might be relevant to the William and Mary. As time progressed, my surveyed features increased dramatically. I also expanded my study to include the mechanism, somewhat in-depth, for other works. I'd begin with features that are present on your W-250, and perhaps concentrate on features that are easily observed, or obvious -- that could give you at least a place to start your questionnaire. Just my $.02, I don't mean to try and steer you in a direction you aren't happy doing.

Best,
Fran

[PeterF]

Are the archives in Orange still accessible to vetted serious researchers? I haven't been there in over 20 years, but during that visit was able to find the answer we were seeking on that trip, in just two days of file review.*

I bet there are notes in the Edison factory archives that describe the later finish and how it was achieved, and perhaps even a reference showing when the workers were directed to alter the highlighting design to the modern/consistent one more commonly seen.

The move from the early, coppery, finish to the later, yellowy, finish would primarily have been out of stylistic considerations, although it could likely have also been cheaper to produce - by being less labor intensive, etc.

As I explained in my earlier post, the early finish was in fashion for almost any sort of household metalware up to the mid- to late- teens, and then just stops - the style had fallen out of fashion. It's similar to the way mahogany and then walnut replaced oak as the favored wood species for furniture (and phonograph cabinets) at around that same time. Fashions change.

(One of our members even has - or maybe by now, had - a cylindrical vacuum cleaner in that finish, and I have a table fan with blades and base that sport it!)

It will be fun to detect the serial number range where the later finish, applied to W&M units, shifted from blotches to stripes. It will also be fun to see if other late-teens DD machines are found with the later finish as well, and whether they also have blotches transitioning to stripes.

I have a buddy with an Italian Umbrian, which I seem to recall has the later finish, and will ask him to do the blotch/stripe check. I think maybe the Jacobean is from around in there as well - too lazy to go grab the book and look it up right now. It would be the mid to upper range machines, and from before the London and Baby timeframe.







*In case you are wondering what the question was, during that 1995 visit by Ron Dethlefson and me to Orange, and the answer:

Q: How many blue amberol cylinders were typically produced from each mold?
A: Up to 800.

I still have a ream of photocopies I made on that trip, and should share them here someday.