Early Columbia Eagle: Interesting Front Plate...Anyone Else?

[FellowCollector]

I have several Columbia Eagles (model B) in my collection and would be interested in hearing from others who may have one with a front plate like mine (as seen below).

Many of us know that very early Columbia Eagles have the plain gear cover (no stamped Columbia info), no stamped metal end cap with Columbia info, all wood lid handle, early serial number (typically 5 digits), two metal plates with 4 screws each securing the spring barrels together and so forth.

Most Columbia Eagles have a front plate indicating:

COLUMBIA PHONOGRAPH CO. SOLE SALES AGENT FOR AMERICAN GRAPHOPHONE COMPANY NEW YORK

What I'm interested in is whether anyone else has an early Columbia Eagle with the following front plate indicating:

EASTERN TALKING MACHINE CO. -177 TREMONT STREET BOSTON MASS. U.S.A.-NEW ENGLAND HEADQUARTERS FOR GRAPHOPHONES PHONOGRAPHS RECORDS HORNS AND EVERYTHING BELONGING TO TALKING MACHINES

Mine is serial 86830 which is quite early. If you also have one of these early Columbia Eagles I'd appreciate your sending me a picture by PM (or posting it here) along with your serial number.

It's interesting to actually see the subtle differences between very early production models, middle production models and very late models of the Eagle.

Doug

[OrthoSean]

Eastern Talking Machine Co. was a distributor for Columbia and (later) Victor products in Boston. It wouldn't surprise me that they applied plates like that one, but this is the first I've seen.

Sean

[FellowCollector]

Eastern Talking Machine Co. was a distributor for Columbia and (later) Victor products in Boston. It wouldn't surprise me that they applied plates like that one, but this is the first I've seen. Sean

Thanks for your comments, Sean. Your comments along with Kevin's (52089) PM reminded me that I have several early cylinder boxes with the Eastern Talking Machine label on them. I've posted some pictures of those below.

Like Sean, I've never seen another Columbia Eagle with the stamped Eastern Talking Machine front plate like mine. It's reasonable to presume that the Eastern Talking Machine plate pre-dates the much more common Columbia Phonograph Co. plate. Or perhaps this plate was regional to the earliest Columbia Eagles sold in the Northeast U.S. It's interesting to speculate on it.

Doug

[phonogfp]

Doug,

There's an article in the June 2012 issue of The Antique Phonograph which describes and illustrates a number of changes that occurred during the decade of Eagle production. The article is titled, The Eagle Graphophone, 1897-1907, Production Changes and Anomalies. Among others, a couple of Eagles are shown where original Graphophone plates were removed by the retailer, and their own plates substituted. One of these was from the Indiana Graphophone Company (Spear & Co.) of Indianapolis. The other was the Eastern Talking Machine Company.

This activity has been observed only in relatively early production Eagles. Keep in mind that In 1897, the Columbia Phonograph Company was well-remembered in the minds of many retailers as simply another competitor from the North American Phonograph Company period. In the early days, some retailers - including Eastern - weren't keen on selling merchandise with another retailer's name on it. Accordingly, the long "Columbia Phonograph Company" plates at the front edge of these early Eagles were removed, and Eastern's own plate was substituted.

Here's an example I have here: No.80156:

I had another example of an Eagle with the Eastern plate on it (No.90757), but sold it to a friend.

Here's an example from the Indiana Graphophone Company where both the long plate in front and the data plate were removed. Indiana Graphophone substituted its own engraved nickeled brass plate. Interestingly, in order to keep Columbia happy, Indiana ink-stamped the machine's serial number on the underside of the wooden base!

There's a reason I encourage all serious collectors to join the Antique Phonograph Society and receive that journal! Each issue contains information available nowhere else.

George P.

[FellowCollector]

Doug, There's an article in the June 2012 issue of The Antique Phonograph which describes and illustrates a number of changes that occurred during the decade of Eagle production. The article is titled, The Eagle Graphophone, 1897-1907, Production Changes and Anomalies. Among others, a couple of Eagles are shown where original Graphophone plates were removed by the retailer, and their own plates substituted. One of these was from the Indiana Graphophone Company (Spear & Co.) of Indianapolis. The other was the Eastern Talking Machine Company.

I was hoping to hear from you on this thread, George! Thank you for sharing the interesting information as well as pictures of those early Eagles.

I'm surprised that Columbia, the manufacturer, didn't remonstrate with Eastern Talking Machine Company over replacing Columbia's plate with their plates. And on top of that the Eastern plates are amazingly similar in size and design to the Columbia plates! The audacity!

So we can presume that Eastern utilized the same company that Columbia utilized to stamp their ID plates? And all of this time I presumed that Columbia made and stamped their own ID plates. The Indiana plate is definitely considerably different from any Columbia plate but the Eastern plate was surely from the same provider of the Columbia plate. Yes?

I've been a member of the Antique Phonograph Society for a couple of years now and purchased all of the back issues that were available when I joined. I'll look for that article in the June 2012 issue. When I received the entire shipment of back issues I didn't have much of an opportunity to look at them so thank you for your reference to the issue. I'll enjoy reading it.

Doug

[briankeith]

They must have made millions of these Columbia Eagles as they turn up so very often

[phonogfp]

So we can presume that Eastern utilized the same company that Columbia utilized to stamp their ID plates? And all of this time I presumed that Columbia made and stamped their own ID plates. The Indiana plate is definitely considerably different from any Columbia plate but the Eastern plate was surely from the same provider of the Columbia plate. Yes?

The plates in question are simply stamped aluminum. I have no doubt that American Graphophone made theirs in-house at Bridgeport. As for Eastern, I'm sure there were a number of firms around the Boston area that could have made these for them.

I've been a member of the Antique Phonograph Society for a couple of years now and purchased all of the back issues that were available when I joined. I'll look for that article in the June 2012 issue. When I received the entire shipment of back issues I didn't have much of an opportunity to look at them so thank you for your reference to the issue. I'll enjoy reading it.

Have fun, Doug! There's an Index to articles on the APS web site which is open to the public. The link is at the bottom of this page:

https://www.antiquephono.org/back-issue ... honograph/

Although this Index has no longer been updated beyond Dec. 2016 (the search feature has replaced it), it shows the surprising breadth of topics that have been covered through 2016. When I research a topic, I have a number of indexes I consult - and the APS Index/Search is one of them. There's so much information available now that a person can't possibly remember it all. Those indexes are priceless.

They must have made millions of these Columbia Eagles as they turn up so very often

Well, not millions, but around 150,000 of them!

George P.

[FellowCollector]

Thanks for the additional info, George!

They must have made millions of these Columbia Eagles as they turn up so very often

Regarding briankeith's comment (above), George beat me to it! Hazelcorn's book indicates a total production at 149,000 for the Eagle which, to me, seems reasonable. They're fairly common but not that common.

I find the Columbia Eagle to be much more interesting with its 2-spring design compared with the rather boring 1-spring Columbia Q. The Victrola VV-IX and VV-VI are what I consider the real 'yawn-yawn' phonographs as it seems all of them have survived!

Doug

[briankeith]

Yes Doug - I think everyone at one time owned a Victor VV-VI

[Victrolacollector]

I actually owned one of these Columbia B Eagles with the Eastern Talking Machine plate. I had never seen another one like it until now. I sold my machine back in late 2012 early January 2013. I now regret selling now, but sold it for due to finances at the time. I wonder how many actually have this tag?