eufon the hungarian gramophone

[vorbeste]

hungarian gramophone mark. 1907-1918. made in erzsébetfalva. now called pesterzsébet, a part of budapest. the patent owner was presztér károly. it is marked on the sounbox too. curious: crank and volume control on the back. with the short 25 cm spring works longer than 6 minutes. excellent volume and tone. the firm made records too with te labels metafon and olympia.
it is not restored, original finish. the city is istanbul probably?

[GMEMG]

That is a most Attractive and interesting machine - it was retailed in the UK from 1909 but, it seems without the additional pictorial embossed plate

the Following pictures are from the Roger Thorne Archive i bought at the last sale from his Estate (From which i was Banned - but didn't let that put me off ! )

[gramophoneshane]

What a fantastic little gramophone! Thanks so much for posting the photos. It's always a delight to see machines that were made & sold in countries that didn't dominate the world market. I doubt any of us here have ever seen an actual "Eufon" before & probably never will again.

[vorbeste]

lot of thanks for the compliment and the infos. the type of the 1st pic is common, but i never saw before this tipe with brass grill.

interesting that this very small firm sold in the U.K.

it was a manufacture, the serial nr is about 15.000. is on the picture with the brass grill the date july 1911? i cant see it well.

[FloridaClay]

Thanks for sharing this handsome and unusual machine.

Clay

[PhonoDoll5]

Wow, it's beautiful <3

[vorbeste]

thanks for all the compliments and the new data. here a sample of a hungarian gramophone record: the metafon record - made from eufon fabric - sold 1913 in 6 weeks more than 4.000 pieces from this recording. the tittle is "pinkász the first home defence artilleryman." it was a sales record in the 1910-es in hungary.

[Starkton]

"Eufon" was the only successful talking machine built in the Austro-Hungarian empire before the First World War. Thank you very much for showing this beautiful little machine.

"Euphon" AG was founded in May 1907 in Budapest with a share capital of 300.000 K (K = Austro-Hungarian crown). President - Baron Johann Harkányi; Vice-President Otto Titus Blathy; Managers - Eugen Harsányi, Dr. Moritz Kornfeld, Rudolf Preßter, Dr. Emil Stein, Bernhard Szanto, Dr. Edmund v. Wagner, Karl Zipernovssky, Alexander Novák, Julius v. Perczel and Philipp Szende.

When the patent of Rudolf Preßter (Rezsó Preszter) for a gramophone without horn, filed for on 1 December 1906 in Germany (I don't know the Austrian patent date), was issued in late May 1908, it was immediately bought by "Euphon" AG and exploited to manufacture a large number of "Eufons". In 1909, the company offered at least five different models at prices between 75 K and 200 K.

One Austro-Hungarian crown (K) was about 20 US cents in 1909.

[vorbeste]

hi,
thanks for the post!! where did you find the infos? i think the name is presztér károly, not rudolf Preßter. but probably i am wrong. courious that in the firm was zipernovszky károly, he is the inventor of the transformer. look here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1roly_Zipernowsky

here the back of the soundbox with the name presztér. curious but the rubber is still elastic.

do you have probably a catalog or sales list from this firm?

[vorbeste]

i think you use a german book because they are all hungarians but the names are written in german style.

the are correct Harkányi János, Bláthy Ottó (he never used the 2nd name Titusz http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ott%C3%B3_Bl%C3%A1thy) Harsányi Jenő, Kornfeld Móric, perczel Gyula, Novák Sándor, Szende Fülöp, Zipernowszky Károly.