weighing the options in buying the first new phonograph...

[brianu]

I was thinking over the weekend as I was looking around at some of my machines, realizing what they would have cost when new and how at the time instead of living in a room full of them, a person would have had to browse through them before selecting just one and paying an amount of money equal in today's dollars probably to what I paid for the roomful...

I'm wondering how tough the decisions must have been for someone in say, 1920, and what sort of information or interests might have driven them... the advertising, the availability, the neighbors... whether to buy new or used (I'm assuming there were used phonograph shops, or that dealers simply sold used and new side by side). or whether owning a lesser known, but cheaper off-brand machine might have been frowned upon by the more well-to-do social elite - like, say, owning a stereo in the 1980's made by sanyo instead of sony.

[Lenoirstreetguy]

Funny you should post this, because on the subject, I was just reading a couple of volumes( 1910-15) of the Edison Phonograph Monthly that were reprinted in the 70's. There are several dealer's stories of how they clinched a sale for Edison. If you were a prospect for a high end " ola" machine...of Victor Columbia or Edison origin, ..each dealer was quite prepared to haul one to your home and let you listen to it for several days before you decided and at all the same time so you had a showroom in your parlour! Now, I don't think you would get this sort of service if you were comparing a Gem with a Victor 1, of course.
And all the machines could be bought on time payment. One of the issues of the EPM provides amortization tables for each machine with various down payments. The myth of course is that our hearty and honest grandparents walked in with a pocket full of gold pieces to pay in full. Not so.
Used machines were quite common too.Speaking of that, in the late twenties my grandfather accepted a used "phonic" type Brunswick as part payment on a bill owed to his general store. I wish I had that machine now, but it in turn was traded for a Victor Micro-Synchronous radio. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Jim

[Discman]

I have the bill of sale for my A-250 and the original owners paid $50 down on this $250 machine and agreed to make 4 more payments of $50 each month.
Dave

[Valecnik]

I have the bill of sale for my A-250 and the original owners paid $50 down on this $250 machine and agreed to make 4 more payments of $50 each month.
Dave

That's cool Discman. If you are able, it would be great for you to scan and post a copy of that letter.

I know that my great grandmother bought a used Victrola 11. I have no information about the price she paid. My uncle still has the machine though.

[larryh]

My great grandfathers both purchased reasonably early versions of machines.. The one on my dads side on Nov. 3 1904 purchased a Victor 1. I wouldn't think there was much competition to that at the time? I know that because it was always up in the Attic of the old home place when I was little and I bought it at the sale, it was plainly marked in pencil under the turntable as to the date of purchase. As with everything, after hauling it around a while I sold it off. Not much sound to it I thought. He then proceeded to purchase a C 250 upright mahogany Edison which was still in the basement when I was young in the early 40's. When I stopped lately to consider the time span of it all, it seems like a very short time to buying the Edison and probably moving it to the basement.. They had a Philco Farm Battery Short Wave type radio with push buttons on the front, a floor model. That must have shoved the Edison out perhaps. I wonder now if he must not have been a music lover as well and maybe I get some of it from him as he evidently appreciated the quality of sound produced by Edison over Victor machines of the time..

On the other side, my grandmothers father purchased an Aeolian vocalion, and it was the first working phonograph I was exposed to. It ran till the neighbor boy broke the spring and my grandmothers and my heart as well. At the time we all thought it was death sentence for machines to break a spring, which basically for most people it was. I wonder about the musical taste of that family, as in retrospect I see that the Vocalion had a very small actual opening in relationship to the size of the machine for the sound to exit. I just ran into a machine that was a basket case at a junk store of that make and was surprised at how much of the front of the cabinet was not sound emitting. I have a friend that has a little table model oak Vocalion and it sounds pretty good to me, but without something else to compare it directly too, its hard to say for sure.

[Discman]

Here's the invoice. I was wrong about the terms of sale; they put $25 down and paid $10 per month.
Dave

[Valecnik]

Here's the invoice. I was wrong about the terms of sale; they put $25 down and paid $10 per month.

Thanks alot Dave. Lots of interesting things about this invoice.
- Selling an A250 in October 1915, (pretty late)
- The apparent serial number "88?" or could this be some cabinet number
- The payment term of %10/month with the stated 6% interest would mean it's finally paid off probably January 1918

I guess they were willing to be pretty flexible in order to move products out the door and that probably they had a large stock or the A250 was not deemed a "hot seller".

[Discman]

The serial number is 8800, not 88. The number 8800 was also written on the horn bell with what looks like black crayon. It was only visible after the original wood grain paint flaked off.
Dave

[Valecnik]

Hi Dave,

Yes the 8800 would make more sense. Interesting that they also wrote it on the horn apparently before painting. Why would anyone care??? You are very lucky to get this documentation with the machine. That's very rare. Bruce

[gramophoneshane]

I've heard this happened quite a lot on the earlier models, where the tag, number on the horn & on the bedplate all match.
It certainly is an iteresting document to say the least.
I'm not sure what it was like in USA, but over here it seems most music shops, both city & country, offered some sort of time payment scheme. Many news paper ads, and even dusters advertise the fact.
I guess when you think about it, many of these machines cost many months wages, and unless you were very well off, paying off a machine would be the only way to obtain one. Many medium to high end models would be the price of a second hand or new car.