The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hello,

I just bought an Edison Standard model E. It came with a blue Edison morning glory horn with floral design and it’s crane. It also came with a cylinder cabinet. I paid $500, so hopefully that wasn’t bad. Anyway, the odd thing is, is it has a chord and a motor? I’m not super familiar with these and was hoping you guys might could tell me more about it… he said his grandpa was the original owner and that the motor and switch were an upgrade for it? I’ve attached some pictures, let me know what you think. The motor and everything fits so perfectly I wonder if it is legit? I’ve read about the ekonowatt motor but that’s not what this has. So maybe it was just something his grandpa threw together.

His grandpa did an interesting job converting it to electric.
I'd leave it as is if it works.
Looks like an old radio knob was used for the switch.

James.

PS: lets see the cabinet.

It doesn’t sound very good…I’ve got other machines I can use, but just wanted the cylinder cabinet and horn. Maybe I’ll just sell it for parts or try and make it function. It runs way too fast right now so sounds bad.

I know little about electric motors.
Is the switch just an on/off type?
I guess you use a rheostat type switch in its place.

I think a machine like this adds interest to a collection. If it were mine I would go back and ask the seller to write everything he knows or what he was told about the machine. Also ask if there might be a photo that contained the Standard and offer to pay to have it duplicated. Explain that you'd like to keep the history with the machine. Finally, I would go about servicing the electric motor and make it work as it must have for many years. I think it's a really interesting machine. You'd be the only collector with an electric Standard. You have an unusual opportunity. I hope you take advantage of it.

Of course you could do all of the above and sell it to me!

Jerry Blais

I’ll see what I can do to get it running. I’ll leave it all original of course. Won’t hardly do much to it. I’ll post some more pictures of the motor as I go. It really is quite interesting. It just fits so well. I’ll let you know what I decide to do about selling it Jerry!

It could well be a labor of love by the owner, a man with undoubtable skills, or a motor that some local dealer sold as a conversion kit. I don't know much about phonographs, but it was so popular a machine that hundreds of local dealers across the US must have developed side services for updating them. The motor looks much modern than the machine, being so small when compared with the, say, 1929 motors, though, so it could be the man itself who updated it much later...
It is well done and worthy to keep it as is, and make it work properly.

A clever conversion!

It does not appear that anything horrible has been done that can't be reversed, (except for the hole in the top plate, for the switch). I think that just removing the electric motor, and replacing with original parts, would result in a working machine! Would be worth saving a decent, late model Standard.

In the FWIW department, I'd swear that the motor used came from a late 40's early 50's Webster Chicago wire recorder. I've restored several of those machines so that motor is no stranger to me.

I would leave it as is, maybe replace the wiring with modern cloth covered wire and add some type of variac as a speed control, since it doesn't appear to have a governor... I always wanted an electric cylinder player... no more winding. It's an amazing conversion, since everything fits like it was born that way...

Most of the original wiring looks OK, but I would replace the power cord and get rid of the electrical tape connection. Solder the connection and use heat shrink insulation...
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