Edison Spring Motor

[Andersun]

If you look inside the lid, you will see where that paper label used to be. It's nice somebody kept it.....

[cmshapiro]

Learn something every day! I always wondered how one would be able to position a Standard Speaker for record and playback mode. Has anyone ever tried it out?

Also, the clips are flipped top and bottom. The one with the notch goes on the top at the 12 o'clock position. There was a small right angled bent rod that goes into that hole of the carriage that the notch clears, and held in place with a set screw. I don't know what this piece was for, and Tewksbury's book doesn't even show it in the parts list. There is a rod that extends from the top plate of some (likely earlier) standard speakers that this piece may have acted as a stop for, perhaps because the bottom stop for record mode was not fine tuned by the thumb screw to the right, that was for playback tracking. Perhaps that rod served as a stop for a dialed in recording tracking position. It may have also been used to hold the connector for listening tubes in place. Most machines are missing that small piece, and by the time Tewksbury was published in 1897, small bits and pieces like that were leftover vestiges from earlier uses of Class M machines, and well defunct by the time that the Spring Motor (with recycled/old stock Class M top works) was introduced.

[Aristophane]

If you look inside the lid, you will see where that paper label used to be. It's nice somebody kept it.....

Ah! I have it inside too, just like you. I hadn't even noticed. Thank you!

[Aristophane]

A very nice example of an earlier Edison Spring Motor!

It's difficult to date these as specifically as the Gems, Standards, and Homes, but yours can be dated with confidence to 1897; probably the latter half. Your machine's motor should have spherical governor weights and spoked gears - signs of the U.S. Phonograph Company motor.

Thanks for posting!

George P.

Thanks. I will take some pictures of the motor this weekend and post them.

Is it normal that the engine number does not match the chassis number?

[Aristophane]

Thanks. I will take some pictures of the motor this weekend and post them.

Is it normal that the engine number does not match the chassis number?

[Aristophane]

Welcome to the forum! That's a beautiful machine--thanks for sharing it, and congratulations on becoming its proud owner!

Thanks, too, for your kind offer of information about French machines. Although several European members here have generously shared valuable insights and experience over the years, information about the French side of Pathé is not easy to find on this side of the Atlantic, and I'll hope we can all learn more from someone in the company's home territory.

Thank you ! Charles Pathé and his wife moved into a bourgeois villa on Franklin Roosevelt Avenue, Vincennes (nos. 22-32) in 1910 to be closer to their workshops. The villa still exists in a private courtyard.
I lived at no. 38, which is how I became interested in him and history !
If interested, I posted some pictures of my M4 Phonograph Maison Ch. & J. Ullmann dated 1899
You will find it under the heading “Phonograph Maison Ch. & J. Ullmann.”

[phonogfp]

Is it normal that the engine number does not match the chassis number?

Absolutely. They never do.

George P.

[Aristophane]

Is it normal that the engine number does not match the chassis number?

Absolutely. They never do.

George P.

Merci George !

[Aristophane]

Prior to Edison absorbing the United States Phonograph Company in October 1897, the latter company was Edison's sales agent for Homes and Spring Motors. Sales were quite sluggish. As noted in The Talking Machine Compendium, only 774 machines had been sold between March 1, 1896 and February 28, 1897. National Phonograph Company's total sales (including records) for this period was $103,565.29. National's sales from March - December of 1897 (the period from which our Spring Motors originate) was $110,673.23. From this, we can estimate that machine sales for 1897 were not significantly higher than 1896.

Based upon my research on Spring Motor/Triumph Phonographs (noting production benchmarks), I believe that Spring Motor #24671 dates from November 1897. I wish we knew monthly production figures, but this is as close as I can come to estimating the age of Spring Motors from this period.

George P.

Thanks much, based on your reasoning, mine could be dating from approximately April 1897.

[phonogfp]

Thanks much, based on your reasoning, mine could be dating from approximately April 1897.

I don't understand how you arrived at April, but I'm not in a position to refute it.

George P.