Edison No. 6 Dry Cell Battery

[TinfoilPhono]

There's also someone on eBay selling replicas which use ordinary D cells: LINK.

In the long run that would be less expensive.

[fran604g]

Is it possible the phonographs were delivered and set up by the dealer that installed a locally available battery, as opposed to them being shipped from the factory w/Edison batteries (don't know how dangerous these are)?
Ken

Thanks for your photo, Ken!

It's my assumption that even though TAE Inc. may not have produced the No.6 cells themselves, I have a hard time imagining that Edison would have approved of using another branded name of battery in his EAS (electric automatic stop) equipped Phonographs.

After all, he was very heavily involved in the development, production and sale of batteries himself.

Best,
Fran

[fran604g]

There's also someone on eBay selling replicas which use ordinary D cells: LINK.

In the long run that would be less expensive.

Thanks Rene. I've seen this seller in the past, it looks as though he's expanded the selections rather nicely, but I don't see an "Edison" label, yet.

I have still only come across the single image of an Edison No.6 cell that I posted earlier in the thread.

The possibility of "discovering" an Edison branded No.6 cell is important to me primarily because it fits into my C 250/C 19 research.

I will continue to search for the answer to my OP...

Best,
Fran

[wjw]

The Burgess cell in that line-up gave me a good jolt of deja vu! Been years since I saw that brand.

[fran604g]

Hiya folks!

I'm resurrecting this thread in the hopes that since I began it, someone may have actually seen an Edison branded No.6 Dry Cell battery.

I'd like to stay on topic this time, if that's okay. I'm still interested in obtaining one, this is if there's one to be obtained.

I did find new/different/better web images of one at "WorthPoint", unfortunately the info about it is guarded, and I can't see paying the site to view their coveted information - if indeed it's theirs to share. It states the images were from eBay. Here's a LINK: https://www.worthpoint.com/worthopedia/ ... 1643054165

Best,
Fran

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vintage-antique-thomas-edison-dry_1_31c8f877ac73db528bfb1154805d385d (3).jpg (20.17 KiB) Viewed 1063 times

[rgordon939]

Here’s a screenshot from Worthpoint of what it sold for.

Rich Gordon

[fran604g]

Thanks Rich!

Best,
Fran

[fran604g]

Just for posterity, I switched up my search phrase, and found the 32nd Volume of Railway Signaling (1939 issues) featured articles showcasing this Edison Improved Industrial No. 6 Dry Cell, and the 5oth Anniversary of the Edison Primary Cell. This battery was produced much later than I had previously (and erroneously) thought. This explains a lot.

I am sharing snapshots of the pertinent pages:

Best,
Fran

[Governor Flyball]

I bought my 1917 C-250 with the Duncan Electric stop in Moline, Illinois. It appeared to have its original battery fitted, a Burgess No.6. Here is a photo. Note the company location in Madison Wisconsin where the company was founded in 1917. This must make it one of if not the first Burgess battery.

Curiously, it still has a terminal voltage of 1.4 volt after over 100 years. Of course the battery has a high internal resistance so it cannot deliver any current.

I am curious if the phonograph was shipped with the battery? I am inclined to think not because Burgess was mid west where the machine was sold in 1917. So was it separately sourced and installed by the Edison dealer?

[fran604g]

The hard truth is that anyone could've put the battery in your C 250 cabinet to power the Edison Electric Automatic Stop (the company never referred to this mechanism as a "Duncan" anything), at any point during the time period when the Burgess battery was produced. When did they (Burgess) begin producing their own labeled No.6 dry cell, and for how long were they produced? The National Carbon Company began marketing its dry cell in 1896, trademarked with the name "Columbia", and "...was the first company to successfully manufacture and distribute sealed dry cell batteries on a large scale." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Carbon_Company.

In my mind, there's no reason to believe the Edison co. would've used an outwardly recognizable competitor's product, especially since the Edison Storage Battery Company produced a wide variety of batteries for a wide variety of tasks, and we all know how territorial T.A.E. was in real life. By 1915 (when Edison was perfecting his version of the device) any patents protecting the dry cell would've presumedly expired, so I'm sure by the time it was introduced on the C 250 (January 1917) any number of battery producing companies could've produced them for the Edison Co., under any label Edison preferred.

I tend to think the T.A.E. co. would've had their own labelling for such a battery, or maybe there was a subsidiary company producing them? I don't know, that's just my unsubstantiated opinion. Which battery brand name would've been supplied for the E.A.S. is a mystery to me still. Regardless of which battery would have been supplied or recommended by Edison, they had a finite life, and if an owner was dissatisfied with what was supplied, he could easily replace it right from the very beginning.

How long was a No.6 dry cell's useful life with the device fully functioning, and being used on a daily basis? I don't have a clue, that's way above my pay scale. I'd bet that once the owners discovered the machine still functioned perfectly without a charged battery, they tended to not bother "fixing" the machine. And it wouldn't have been any real difficulty to have a repairman replace the E.A.S. single start/stop lever and solenoid assembly, with the preceding and subsequent "two-lever" start/stop arrangement. Why bother fiddling with the E.A.S.? I certainly wouldn't have, and actually don't now, with my E.A.S. equipped C 250.

After all we can look at this device as a failure, as far as the company was concerned. And then there was that pesky patent infringement lawsuit decision in 1920, in which Edison lost to the original Patent holder of the device, too. To a guy named Raymond Duncan. I wouldn't doubt that the lawsuit was tied up in the courts for several years, and that may have been the reason why, in 1918, Edison withdrew the device from being supplied in his Phonographs. I haven't discovered that information.

I don't think a new battery supplied for use with the Edison Electric Automatic Stop would have had a very long life simply because the device can be very finicky, and my presumption is that owners would've abandoned using them fairly quickly - and goodbye battery. Again, I have no factual information to know any of this, it's just my gut feeling, and that changes whenever I dream up new scenarios out of hints of information. I also tend to think that most likely the only reason a battery would be contained within any C 250 is because a subsequent owner thought it might be cool to see if he could get the device working again, years after the original owners had abandoned them. Of course there still will be the odd all original machine now and again, but by and large I think those would be very rare.

Had Edison envisioned using a rechargeable Nickel-Iron battery to power his device? What about one of his "jar" acid Edison-BSCO primary cell batteries? I've never seen any indication that acid was ever present in a C 250 equipped with the E.A.S., but that doesn't eliminate the possibility - there's such a relatively small number of examples extant that anything's possible I suppose.

Best,
Fran