A Victor Time Capsule From 1905

[SonnyPhono]

Thanks for sharing! It's nice to see things like this that are way out of the ordinary. Really great collection!

[Lenoirstreetguy]

To find this sort of thing in its " natal state" is extraordinary. It's the condition of the materials as much as the fact that they were a dealer's package that makes them outstanding. The entire kit reprinted in book form would be a nice addition to a collector's reference shelf!

Jim

[Valecnik]

Most collectors don't realize that the Vic VI was offered for a very short time with a brass belled horn and the steel portion was wood grained in mahogany. And I learned something... The VI was priced at $100 with the #10 reproducer. I always thought the VI with the #10 was $105 and slightly less with the Exhibition. Thanks for sharing. Jerry Blais

Yes I noticed reference to the woodgrained brassbell too. In addition to being offered with the brassbell, the early Vic 6 pictured has the ID tag on the crankside instead of the front. I'm assuming this was only done so you could show both the crank and the tag in one illustration.

Same for the Victor V. Interesting that they call it a V but it's essentially a D. I've seen this in other literature too.

I've seen many later style D's with a Vic V tag. I've never seen an early style D with a Vic V tag.

Really a great find. The requirements for becoming a dealer are really quite reasonable. I'd like to inqire further with the company on that. Do they provide an email address you could forward on?

[phonogfp]

By the way, I haven't seen any 14-inch Deluxe Special Records so far - I know they were commercial failures and not so many were ever sold, but surely, there much be survivors. I know YT user MusicBoxBoy posted one example on his channel, but I wonder if there are other people who has this record in their collection.

I kind of expected others to post photos of these, but as long as no one has...

The first photo shows three of the Victor 14" discs. These were introduced in March 1903 and disappeared by the end of 1904. At first, these were labeled "DELUXE RECORD" but by the fall of 1903 the labels were changed to "DELUXE SPECIAL RECORD." Interestingly, Victor introduced the 14" discs (in March)BEFORE the 12" discs (in June). This seems counter-intuitive, but the company jumped from the 10" discs to the 14". The June introduction of the 12" size may well correlate with the change in labels, as the first 12" issues were called "DELUXE."

A cylinder record box is included for scale - - photos don't really show it, but these babies are BIG. I'm unaware of any record cabinets of the period designed to hold them.

The second photo shows the label affixed to the rear of these records. These 14" discs play for five minutes.

George P.

[phonogfp]

Well, I couldn't post photos of Victor 14" discs without showing a couple of Columbia 14-inchers as well. These apparently sold even less than the Victor product. There are two label variations: the earlier is labeled "Columbia Disc Record" and sold for $2.00. The later variation sports the "Columbia Phonograph Company" lettering at the top of the label, and sold for $1.50. These Columbias are thicker than their Victor counterparts, and weight about a pound apiece!

George P.

[estott]

There is a video on YouTube of a 14 inch Victor disc being played and the sound quality isn't all that good- probably due to the 60 rpm speed.

[FellowCollector]

That is my 14 inch Victor Deluxe Special Record playing in the video. The condition of the record is very good, in fact, but a few viewers felt that it was played too slowly. It's tough to please everyone and I tried my best to set the speed at 60 rpm along with what sounded "right" to me. It's definitely not set to 45 rpm as was mentioned in one of the comments. Here is that video for those who have not seen it:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ILU5VTMLyM[/youtube]

Doug (MusicBoxBoy on YouTube)

[estott]

That is the video I was referring to- The sound isn't all that bad but I still think that slowing down the speed introduces a mushy quality.

[Kirkwood]

Sean---let me add my thanks to the growing chorus for posting this marvelous find! What a great look into the world of Victor in 1905. I like the letter style of "business-ese" used at the time, such a reminder of politeness and formality in business. The little story about the woman's dog attacking the stuffed Nipper (!) in the store window was amusing too, you can almost picture such a thing happening at the time. Today of course, placing a stuffed dog to look like Nipper in the shop window would be---well, kind of odd.

I have never seen nor held a Victor 14 inch disc in my hands. But---I have long thought that it was interesting that a company like Pathé would continue to offer records in the 14 inch size into the nineteen-teens. I have a few, both the French centre-start and the US outer-rim-start products, and was lucky enough to have an album to store them in. Not all phonographs will let you play those 14 inch discs----in many the auto-stop parts will get in the way of the record. They ARE large, though---and impressive looking. Never did find any of the 20-inchers though.....

[OrthoSean]

Thanks Kirk!

Now that I've got the hang of my new scanner and my new MacBook, I plan on posting a lot more paper from my collection. I've been putting off learning how to get it all working right, so this was a good tutorial for me!

I don't own any of the 14 inch Victors or Columbias either, but I've got a stack of Pathés and you're right, they're massive! I found a couple of the 14 inch albums with an actuelle I picked up to complete my good machine a couple of years ago that I stuck in the machine, but I chose to sleeve the discs and not use the albums, as Pathé albums seem to use really bad paper that falls apart over time.

George, thanks for posting those pictures!

Sean