CHARLES BALMAIN and his gramophone.

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old country chemist
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CHARLES BALMAIN and his gramophone.

Post by old country chemist »

GREETINGS ALL! Well, what I must have missed after not looking in for such a long period!
Some information required. We are giving a talk at Malvern on the "Neo-Balmain" machine, and we need some introductory material to tell the audience a little more of Charles Balmain and his machine. We know about the 1926 (I think it was) article on his machine, and the variations of it. No photograph of the man have we found, sadly, and only the stock picture of his machine on the heavy cross legged table seems to in existence.
So, if anyone can enlighten us a little, it would be good to mention this clever chap, and to know a little of his background. We do know he was assistant controller at H.M. Stationary office in the 1920s
Hope to hear from someone! Thank you
Kind regards from Alastair Murray.

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Inigo
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Re: CHARLES BALMAIN and his gramophone.

Post by Inigo »

Maybe this is redundant, but in case it isn't.. I believe that Percy Wilson's 1929 book has some texts Abbott the Balmain gramophone too... Although maybe this info was retrieved from the same 1926 article and has nothing new...
Also, one Peter Heath write an article about the Balmain gramophone in Hillandale News; Google shows part 2 in no.232, so maybe part one starts in no.231, and maybe there are more parts in no.233 and next ones. They can be retrieved from here
https://archive.org/details/HillandaleNews232
Inigo

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Re: CHARLES BALMAIN and his gramophone.

Post by epigramophone »

Alastair, The Gramophone Jubilee Book 1923-1973 contains an article by Percy Wilson which includes information about Balmain and his machine. You are welcome to borrow it next time we meet. Unfortunately the book does not contain a photograph of Balmain.

Roger.

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Re: CHARLES BALMAIN and his gramophone.

Post by emgcr »

Alastair---here is the article which I think is the one referred to by Roger which I hope is helpful. Unfortunately there does not seem to be much written about the man himself that I can find.

I hope your talk goes well and I know your audience will be thrilled to see and hear your great creation.

Double click on the images to enlarge.
Attachments
Balmain reference (1).jpg
Balmain reference (2).jpg

old country chemist
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Re: CHARLES BALMAIN and his gramophone.

Post by old country chemist »

Thank you all-Inigo, Roger and Graham, most helpful, and I have noted down the bits about Charles Balmain.
Yes, a pity there is no picture of him, but I wait, in hope, that one will emerge!
He must have been an interesting chap-who else at the time would have thought of playing gramophone records as he did. Did he have a vison in the night, a tip-off from someone in his future, or was he an original thinker?
I see it is mentioned that his machine had a conical horn. I had a feeling that years ago-yes, years ago, I read something of him writing about how to produce a conical horn, using brown paper and different sizes of "mother's" saucepan lids to get the difference in diameter of the horn. Must have been a tricky job! And the former of exponential proportions that Wilson produced, which Balmain got some "contractor" to make the horn with many, many windings of gummed parcel tape. Quirky? His original horn sounded very good, but when the Wilson horn was used, the results were wonderful, and for the editor of "The Gramophone" to class it as his favourite instrument for years, is quite something.
In the picture of the Balmain machine on the strong "card table" it is difficult to see what type of soundbox was used. I did hear that an "Exhibition" was used, and it looks a bit like that in the picture, but I imagine that something more adjustable may have been used, as the "Exhibition2 is well known for it's strident nature, allthough I know that some "tuners" get excellent results from various adjustments of the soundbox

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Re: CHARLES BALMAIN and his gramophone.

Post by epigramophone »

Balmain held a senior position at H.M. Stationery Office, where there would have been an unlimited supply of gummed parcel tape ;) .

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Re: CHARLES BALMAIN and his gramophone.

Post by old country chemist »

Thinking about it, and I should do more of that!-the only picture of the Balmain machine shows it with a Wilson horn. This must have been in the time that Compton Mackenzie had the machine. I suppose we will never see an earlier picture with Balmain's own horn, a conical affair
Thanks Roger for the mention of where Balmain got his endless supply of gummed parcel tape. I remember the stuff back in the early 1960s. I used to buy rolls of it, "Butterfly Brand" I think it was, at 6 old pennies a roll. I used to spend more time making record covers that in ever listening to records! In those days I knew little about the hobby or where to obtain such items as card covers. Often the big piles-and I mean big piles, of old gramophone records in dusty second hand shop windows, were devoid of covers. One shop was hardly ever open, and when I passed by frequently, the piles of 78s at the front of the windows were very inviting. That particular shop, in Aberdeen, used to pile the records up several feet off the ground, and I remember one of the owners, carefully watching me as I went down the pile, to make sure I did not break any putting them back. Sixpence was the usual charge for a gramophone record of any period, but I came unstuck one day, as I selected several by Layton and Johnstone. When I went to pay for my pile, the owner said that the Layton and Johnstone records were worth more, so I had to pay extra to get them, and being a canny Scot I did not go back there for ages.
It was at that time in Aberdeen's Friday Market, that I came upon a blue early single sided Zonophone. I often wonder what was on the record, as I sadly passed it by. I can still remember the first record I ever bought-can any of you folks on the forum do the same?
Kind regards to you all from
Alastair Murray.

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Inigo
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Re: CHARLES BALMAIN and his gramophone.

Post by Inigo »

My first batch of 78s were only a few... There was a Spanish Bernard Hilda Orchestra HMV (Musique pour amoureux/Premier Rendez-vous/Insensiblement), a Spanish Columbia by Orquesta Casablanca (El Repatriado/Johhny Peddler), first part of Tchaikovsky's Pathetic symphony no6 by Koussevitsky and the Boston Symph, Toy Symphony by Philarmonia Orch led by George Weldon, one record from the old Gramophone set of Cavallería Rusticana (Viva il vino spumeggiante/A casa, a casa), one record from the Spanish HMV version of sound track from Disney's White Snow and the Seven Dwarfs (Dwarfs Yodel Song/Someday my prince will come), a Pathé record with Indianola/xxx) and a cut away to less diameter Odeon record of Gounod Ave María/Vissi d'arte. I still keep some of them, and others were replaced by better copies years ago. Others, sadly, went away in trade for other records.... Yet I miss them! This was in the evening of November 25th, 1978.
Inigo

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Re: CHARLES BALMAIN and his gramophone.

Post by epigramophone »

My earliest acquisitions were "swaps". Schoolboys were and still are known for swapping things. In my schooldays marbles and cigarette cards were among the favourites.
78's were still being produced (this was 1958) and I mentioned that I was interested in very old ones.
The next day another boy offered me a single sided Black Label HMV by the Mayfair Orchestra. I did not even know that single sided records had ever been made, and assumed that it must be very rare and valuable. More records followed until the boy was discovered to have been removing them from his grandfather's collection :o , but having acquired them in good faith I was allowed to keep them.
That first record was the waltz from "The Pink Lady". My grandmother recognised it instantly as she had seen the show in 1911.
I have the record still.

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Re: CHARLES BALMAIN and his gramophone.

Post by Inigo »

I have a Spanish hmv pressing, acquired in the 1980s, then traded, then acquired again later... of this waltz, backed with Our of my dreams, by Melachrino Orch. It's a Spanish dub of an original British himv. Pity that many Spanish pressings by these times were dubbed matrixes. I don't know if they didn't had access to original metal parts, or if they dubbed from tapes or what. Maybe they dubbed the recordings because they thought that these latter 78s sounded too brilliant for acoustic gramophones... The case is that from the late forties on, many Spanish hmv 78s were dubbed. And they sound so bad, lack of detail or muffled sound. It's a pity. At the same time out Spanish Columbia were producing original recordings of great quality, both in sound and in the record material.
Inigo

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