Uaisgood wrote:Thanks Harvey, yea it’s been restored, the guy I bought it from on eBay said it was and I can tell. Yep, Columbia like pretty much any big corporation was greedy and only wanted people to buy harmony records.
Harmony was one of four inter-related companies that practically shared the same address in Chicago, the others being the Standard Talking Machine Co, the United Talking Machine Co., and the Aretino Talking Machine Co. All of these brands used over-sized spindles on the machines, each brand a different diameter. These companies were formed as a ‘scheme’ to liquidate overstock and cut-out Columbia records by placing ads in magazines and offering a free talking machine with the purchase of a dozen records for $6.00. When the order would arrive, the hapless buyer would discover that conventional 78s wouldn’t fit on the large spindle, so the buyer was locked into buying only records made for that brand, which were all drilled-out and relabeled Columbia pressings. They weren’t being any “greed(ier)” than any other corporation, just a tad deceitful, but how else were they going to remainder an entire warehouse of obsolete Columbia pressings? To their credit, they cost about half of what a name-brand record cost AND one got a free phonograph! Columbia has nothing to do with the sales or marketing of these machines. They were simply produced by American Graphophone Co., the manufacturing entity of the company that most simply refer to as ‘Columbia’, but Columbia was actually the sales arm and had nothing to do with the sales or distribution of these machines.. Collectors today refer to these Chicago big-hole brands collectively as “scheme machines”.
"All of us have a place in history. Mine is clouds." Richard Brautigan