Photo of a 1912 bicycle/phonograph shop

[JohnM]

I have internet now and mostly concur with George's assessment of the photo. It should also be noted that the men in the back are clustered around a cylinder machine with one of those light-weight self-supporting 'Opera-like' horns (the name escapes me and I can't access my F/P reference library). What is it called, George?

However, I believe the aspect is looking toward the front of the shop. That is the display window in the front ('Excelsior' is reversed on the glass). The two-minute cylinders are at the front of the shop. Apparently this is just before the intro of wax Amberols.

[novkev24]

For those of you who do not frequent Shorpy's website, there is an interesting photo posted today of a crowded shop filled with bikes and phonos... what a combo!! Looks like primarily disc players on the left (Is that a Victor Junior?) and a wall of nothing but brand new cylinders on the right! Where's a time machine when ya need one!

http://www.shorpy.com/

Thanks for sharing... That is a great website!

[phonogfp]

I have internet now and mostly concur with George's assessment of the photo. It should also be noted that the men in the back are clustered around a cylinder machine with one of those light-weight self-supporting 'Opera-like' horns (the name escapes me and I can't access my F/P reference library). What is it called, George?

However, I believe the aspect is looking toward the front of the shop. That is the display window in the front ('Excelsior' is reversed on the glass). The two-minute cylinders are at the front of the shop. Apparently this is just before the intro of wax Amberols.

John,

Good spot! That's the "Ideal Self-Supporting Aluminum Horn", and this is the only contemporary photo of one I've seen. Only 6 or 7 survive today. It has the gutta-percha elbow which didn't appear until May, 1908.

I agree that the aspect is from the rear, looking toward the front of the shop. This suggests to my tired old eyes that the 2-minute cylinders are along the side, toward the rear, since they disappear beyond the right-hand margin. But that's not really the point: the fact that 4-minute Edison machines are present (as seen on the foremost Edison to the left, and the machine with the "Ideal" horn in the right background) would suggest that Amberol records were existent, and must certainly be somewhere in the shop. There appears to be a doorway in the right background as well. Who knows what might be beyond it? We can't be certain what's NOT in the shop, but only what we can see in this particular photo.

George P.

[Jerry B.]

I took a second look at the photo and blew it up to full size and it's amazing. I also saw the "Ideal Self Supporting Aluminum Horn" on the machine in the back right of the room. It can be seen in George and Tim's "Gadgets, Gizmos, and Gimmicks" on page 34. In my opinion that's the most interesting phono item in the photo. The photo appears to be full on contradictions. The Victor machine behind the Vic Jr. appears to be a late Vic III. The late Vic III's had more massive corner posts and the base was concave. I looked in Bambach's "Victor Data Book" and the first III pictured with the massive corner posts and concave base was the "C" series of the Vic III which was introduced in 1917. NOTE... The Data book appears to use the same Vic III photo for the "M", "A", and "B" models of the Vic III. The Vic III with the late features is less common than the earlier example but is not rare. Only a small fraction of total Vic III production was made and sold after 1917. The cylinders featured in the store appear to be two minute records. I know customers continued to buy two minute cylinders well past the introduction of four minute cylinders, but it would be very interesting to see the sales figures over the years.
*
Take a second look at the photo and blow it up to full size!!!
*
Jerry Blais

[Edisone]

1912 is well past the gas light era. They look like
electric fixtures anyway.

In major cities gas was gone by 1910. [/quote

That's extremely incorrect. Barely 10% of American homes & businesses were wired by 1915. The entire city street lighting system in 1910-1925 Buffalo, right next door to Niagara Falls, was by 60 candle-power GAS mantles. The wealthy few who could afford electricity were paying the inflation-adjusted 2010 equivalent of $2.20 per KWH. My neighborhood, in the middle of a city of 550,000 people, didn't get power beyond the trolley cars until 1917, and my house was wired after 1922. Even then, they used combination fixtures with Welsbach mantles in most rooms, and some of them remain usable today.

( When our power was out for about a week, after a big storm a few years ago, neighbors wondered why my house was lit-up. It was warm, too, because I've kept the gas fireplaces and a gravity furnace which can work without A/C. )

Anyway, gas or gas/electric combinations would have been many more stores than straight electric. Incandescent gas mantles provided bright light for much less $$ than electricity.

[wjw]

Edisone, what's a gravity furnace?

[Edisone]

Edisone, what's a gravity furnace?

Just an older arrangement of ducts from coal days, set so that heat will rise from the furnace to the registers without aid of a blower. My ultra-modern 1956 (hah) model actually has a blower, but if I remove the air filter, the heat rises in the old ducts pretty well. It probably wastes gas, but comes in handy when the electricity is off! (Power outages for any length of time have been rare - during 24 years in this place, it was off for 1 day after a transformer burned-up, then for 8 days when an freak October snow tore down fully leaf-covered trees & miles of our power lines )

[Phonofreak]

The lights on the photo look to be electric lights. On an electric light, the glass shade faces down. On a gas light, the shade faces up. There is a combination fixture called a gasolier. You can tell because it is both electric and gas. Like I said before, the shade is up on a gas light, and down on an electric light. So on a gasolier, you will see both styles of shade on one fixture.
Harvey Kravitz

[Lenoirstreetguy]

They're gas lights. This is the point of the photo: they show off the new inverted mantles which were introduced about 1910. Gas companies were always taking pics of gas lit premises in order to show that gas was just as good as electricity. They were feeling the pinch because GE had introduced the Mazda lamp which used a tungsten filament instead of carbon. It increased the quality of the light...less yellow .. but most importantly it significantly increased the amount of light per watt of power and thereby cheapened the cost of electric light. As long as the carbon filament bulb was the standard, gas was cheaper and gave a more brilliant( if somewhat less pleasant) light than electricity. As soon as the Mazda lamp hit the market the gas companies went into panic mode and made the type of photo seen here. Their days were numbered though: once electricity came even close in price the safety and convenience factor tipped the balance. Here in Ontario , Ontario Hydro provided cheap " people's power" early on. My house was wired in 1906 and the rural electrification projects had begun before 1914.

Jim

[wjw]

[quote=
Just an older arrangement of ducts from coal days, set so that heat will rise from the furnace to the registers without aid of a blower. My ultra-modern 1956 (hah) model actually has a blower, but if I remove the air filter, the heat rises in the old ducts pretty well. It probably wastes gas, but comes in handy when the electricity is off! (Power outages for any length of time have been rare - during 24 years in this place, it was off for 1 day after a transformer burned-up, then for 8 days when an freak October snow tore down fully leaf-covered trees & miles of our power lines )[/quote]


Oh, I thought it might be a gravity coal delivery. Funny colloquiallism!