Aerophone and a Mystery Tag

[CarlosV]

Just bought an Aérophone, in its smaller configuration. It's a quite hard-to-find machine, as you can see in an old thread in this forum, now unfortunately without photos that were chewed up by the digital termites. The interesting thing is that this is a Belgian-tagged Aérophone, different from the ones I have seen that carried French tags. Otherwise, the parts are Swiss, including the single-spring motor.

The mystery tag is not obviously the brand, that is quite clearly readable, but the dealer tag, in ivorine that is almost completely illegible: I could read

Artistide Mondeur (?)
Optique-phonos
R de la Belle G_____
M____ (Mons?)

Any guesses on the text?

[Orchorsol]

Gorgeous!

A combination of primitive manipulation of the image and then Google - Rue de la Petite Guirlande, Mons.

Looks like Aristide TONDEUR to me.

[Orchorsol]

Possibly? https://www.openarch.nl/abg:d8e3190f-4f ... 7bc50dc/en
I love these mysteries!

[CarlosV]

Possibly? https://www.openarch.nl/abg:d8e3190f-4f ... 7bc50dc/en
I love these mysteries!

That's brilliant, Andy! Mystery not only solved, but now we have the genealogy of the shop owner! Thanks a lot for the help, my ability in this area is limited to enlarging the photo and squinting my eyes. Looking at the modern street on Google maps, it seems a pretty non-descript area. No luck in finding old photos.

[Steve]

Congratulations Carlos. An excellent and very rare machine; a kind of pre-Ginn Expert shaped horn!

[CarlosV]

Congratulations Carlos. An excellent and very rare machine; a kind of pre-Ginn Expert shaped horn!

Thanks, Steve! Indeed it has a similar shape to the Expert horn, but not with same acoustically-defined curve. The sound is good for a machine of the period, comparable to an HMV Monarch. I will not be playing it much, bought it more for the rarity and its odd-looking horn, and the case is quite nice in a marcheterie finish on all five sides. I spent the whole day removing 110 years of grime, but it cleaned quite well . I have also a couple of Aérophone records, with their funny label of a gramophone on an airplane (like the soundbox label of the photo above).