For Sale: Original 1878 Hardy Tinfoil Phonograph - Inquire

[Fonotone]

Original Hardy Tinfoil Phonograph, one of fewer than 2 dozen that are known to have survived. It's available for delivery to the Midwest Expo in Chicago next week if the transaction is settled in advance. It can also be delivered to the Stanton Auction later this summer in Hastings, MI. Information and photographs can be found on my TechnoGallerie website, or by turning your web browser to this link: https://www.technogallerie.com/shop/ori ... ded-sound/

Serious inquiries can be directed to me at [email protected]
No private messages please.

-- Grant

[zipcord]

what is your asking price?

[Starkton]

I wonder where the hard rubber mouthpiece, as a modification by Edouard Hardy to facilitate recording, has gone. In about January 2006, when this phonograph was auctioned, it was still there. See below.

[TinfoilPhono]

That mouthpiece was a modern replica made for an antique telephone. The previous owner replaced it with a proper wooden replica made by Ray Phillips in 2008. The original mouthpiece, and the paint, were lost in a fire a long time ago. This machine is otherwise complete and original.

[Starkton]

Thank you for the clarification, René. The seller obviously does not know the full history of the phonograph. I quote from his description: “if in fact it was ever fully enameled”.

That Hardy modified the mouthpiece is obvious from the following quote: "Hardy has rendered the registration of phonographic tracings more easy by adding a small ebonite tube, resembling the mouth-piece of a wind instrument, to the mouth-piece of the phonograph." (Count du Moncel, The Telephone, the Microphone and the Phonograph, Authorized Translation With Additions and Corrections by the Author, New York 1879)

[TinfoilPhono]

I should add that the reference to a fire is how I recall Guido Severijns describing it when he had it in the early 2000s.

Here's a picture from Guido's original eBay listing from 18 years ago, showing the mouthpiece with typical holes as used on telephones. Guido used the same (plastic) replica mouthpiece on the replica Hardy phonographs that he had made based on this original.

I'm curious about what Hardy's mouthpiece modification actually looked like. I've never seen a Hardy machine that didn't have simply a wooden mouthpiece (unless it was missing altogether). The description of "a small ebonite tube, resembling the mouth-piece of a wind instrument" doesn't sound like it would be shaped like the wooden mouthpiece, or a phone piece. Wind instruments don't have mouthpieces that taper open. I'd love to know more.