Featured phonograph No. 86- The Star

[Valecnik]

I think this is awesome. It's so cleverly disguised! One could almost sneak yet another machine into the house without getting in trouble. "No really...it's just a simple sideboard. No phonograph here! Move along, nothing to see..."

I like the way you think! A few years back I was at the Rüdesheim show with my wife & ditched her long enough to make a deal on a large cylinder cabinet, ~240 pegs or so. As the seller was helping me carry it to our car she caught us! I jokingly tried to convince her that it was a "sock cabinet" for the children's room & pegs were for storing the children's socks.

[Lenoirstreetguy]

I knew I had this.It was reproduced in Ernie Bayly's collector's journal The Talking Machine Review . The difficulty with the Talking Machine Review is that the editor packed so much in each issue that actually finding information about the illustrations is like looking for the proverbial needle in the haystack. I can't find anything about the ad in the issue that carries it, but I'll keep poring over the microscopic type he used to see if somewhere there is a bit of a write up. But I thought it was interesting that the machine seemed to come with cutlery.

Jim

[estott]

And when you bought that sideboard/gramophone you got a set of cutlery with it! Might have been useful for a newlywed couple in a tiny flat.

[schweg]

Thanks for the picture Jim. That is quite close to what I have, without the crazy tonearm-- and by the way, I got no cutlery, just cobwebs with mine.