Victrola store

Discussions on Talking Machines & Accessories
Post Reply
User avatar
Steve Stephens
Victor Jr
Posts: 45
Joined: Thu Mar 26, 2009 9:50 pm
Personal Text: Restoration is little more than another kind of destruction.
Location: San Francisco

Victrola store

Post by Steve Stephens »

http://www.shorpy.com/node/7741?size=_original

The boot shop looks like it sits in the front of and between two parts of the Victrola store. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to walk right in and order a new Victrola? What model would you order?

Steve

Lenoirstreetguy
Victor IV
Posts: 1183
Joined: Thu Jan 08, 2009 3:43 pm
Location: Toronto, Ontario

Re: Victrola store

Post by Lenoirstreetguy »

You know me and old pictures: I love them! Thanks for finding this gem. I actually wonder if there weren't two Victor dealers side by side because the one on the right is the Smith Piano Company and the one on the left is Ansell Bishop and Turner. The piano store has player rolls piled up in the window display and you can see a cardboard player display item behind the blur. I love the banner for the " Dance Sensation of the Year....Paul Whiteman's Ambassador Orchestra" and the ad for the Eight Popular Victor Artists.
And that period Victor is huge : it looks like a Hoosier Cabinet :lol: I'm surprised actually to see one in a store: my impression was that they were mainly " special order" but Washington and New York would in fact be the places to display one.

Jim

User avatar
phonogfp
Victor Monarch Special
Posts: 7384
Joined: Wed Jan 07, 2009 5:08 pm
Personal Text: "If you look for the bad in people expecting to find it, you surely will." - A. Lincoln
Location: New York's Finger Lakes

Re: Victrola store

Post by phonogfp »

Jim,

You beat me to it - - definitely two separate Victrola stores. Certainly there were multiple Victor dealerships in metropolitan areas, but I'm a bit surprised to see two so close to each other. I wonder how that worked out? Note that the Smith Company has a couple of Victrola VI models with a XVI, while Ansell Bishop and Turner is displaying only the Period Model. Perhaps the two stores overtly catered to different clientele? But who knows what might be displayed to the left of that door? And why is it open?

The one thing that doesn't surprise me at all is that the ladies show no interest in the Victrolas - - they seem captivated by the shoes... :roll: :lol:

George P.

Kirkwood
Victor II
Posts: 391
Joined: Sat Jan 17, 2009 4:17 pm

Re: Victrola store

Post by Kirkwood »

Yet another fantastic image from Shorpy. Where on earth do they find these?? I have spent the better part of one morning looking up images on Shorpy related to Washington DC (LOTS of them) and Victrolas. Be sure to look up "Nipper at Bat". Seems that Ansell et al spent much time with their window displays. This one I've mentioned shows a kind of Griffith Stadium in miniature, using all small Nippers as players, refs and crowds in the stands! Somebody went to a lot of work to create that display. Maybe there was a Washington Senators baseball mania going on in 1920? Also it gives a glimpse into the store's interior. I'd post it on here, but am not a member of the Shorpy site. According to the notes below the image, Ansell Bishop & Turner bought out another earlier dealership in 1919 and were bankrupt by 1926. I've never come across any records or dusters or sleeves from this firm, so maybe Washington just didn't support multiple Victor dealers in the same block. By the way, this store was located in the F Street shopping district of old Washington DC----the buildings are gone now. The architectural mastery of the curved glass entryway of the shoe store next door is especially noteworthy. Even back then that had to be a keenly expensive entry to construct. I have to wonder if that fragile leaded glass half-dome survived the blizzard that hit DC a few years later in 1922?

User avatar
OrthoSean
Victor V
Posts: 2912
Joined: Thu Jan 08, 2009 1:33 pm
Location: Near NY's Capital

Re: Victrola store

Post by OrthoSean »

Albany NY had at least four different Victor dealers within just a couple blocks of each other. There was The "Strand Temple Of Music" on State Street, Boardman and Gray on Broadway and two on North Pearl Street, neither of which names I can recall at my desk here at work, just up the block from where these all were at the moment, but I have record dusters from each of them at home all from the same time period from the looks of them, I'll have to take a look later!

Sean

bbphonoguy
Victor III
Posts: 630
Joined: Wed Jan 07, 2009 5:08 pm
Location: Romney, West Virginia

Re: Victrola store

Post by bbphonoguy »

I like the enormous Nipper figure at the door of the Ansell, Bishop, and Turner store.

Jerry B.
Victor Monarch Special
Posts: 8511
Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2009 11:25 am
Personal Text: Stop for a visit when in Oregon.
Location: Albany, Oregon

Re: Victrola store

Post by Jerry B. »

"which model would you order?" ... That's a done deal. If you look carefully at the art model in the window you'll see a sold tag on it. It says "sold-Jerry Blais"!

Edisone
Victor IV
Posts: 1140
Joined: Sat Aug 01, 2009 5:17 pm
Location: Can see Canada from Attic Window

Re: Victrola store

Post by Edisone »

The June 2, 1923 Music Trade Review mentioned that AB&T "provided a console model Victrola" for the John Howard Payne replica home (some kind of Music Week celebration) .. while William P. Van Wickle provided a piano for some Decoration Day exercises ... Van Wickle Piano Co. is the dealer on the right. A 1918 article: "the Van Wickle Piano Co, formerly the F.G.Smith Co." - that explains why both names are on the building!

April 1923 issue has AB&T selling a branch at "Ninth & H Streets, N.E." to J.De Moll Co ...and then adding a piano and radio department in 1924 - I wonder what Van Wickle thought about that!

ps - Same page says that "W.H.Miller, manager of the recording department of Thmoas A. Edison Inc, in New York, recently visited the factory of the Pease Piano Co, to select a piano for use in that work. Mr.Miller finally selected a Pease Style 15 upright as suited to his requirements. It has already been delivered to the Edison laboratory."

Post Reply