New Machine - Grafonola upright.... now with pictures !

[Henry]

Several blocks on that side of Lackawanna Ave. were demolished some years (15-20?) ago to make way for the Steamtown Mall and a parking deck, which are the newer buildings in the photo, so the sites of the stores referred to are history. There is still viable retail along the avenue.

[OrthoSean]

The same thing was done in Albany in the North and South Pearl Street and Broadway area. Most of the historic building there were torn down to make "modern" state employee buildings and parking garages. A real shame. Most of the original buildings that housed the many phonograph and record dealers in the early 1900s are all gone. They call it "Urban Renewal" and I call it "Urban Removal". Here's an an example of South Pearl Street in downtown Albany. The first photo shows it in 1948, still a bustling shopping district while the latter shows it now. Where the overpass stands now used to house Victor and Edison dealer W.J. Killea and just past that, the "Strand Temple Of Music", which was Albany's biggest Victor dealer from 1919 well into the 1930s. You'd never know this was the same exact block by comparing the two photos.

Sean

[Henry]

OFF TOPIC ALERT! Proceed at own risk!

Thanks, Sean. As you can see from my icon, I'm also a street railway (i.e., trolley) fan. Obviously the tracks in your earlier photo show evidence that trolley service had been discontinued: asphalt paving over the turnout ("switch" tracks in the street) and absence of the electric trolley wire (called "overhead" in the trade) are the tell-tale signs. I miss the trolleys almost as much as everything else in the photo, maybe more than that. There was once a thriving trolley system in Scranton, too, and tracks in Lackawanna Ave., but this was defunct by late 1954.

Often the tracks were simply paved over by successive layers of asphalt. Street reconstruction projects sometimes reveal these rails. In Philadelphia, SEPTA actually removed layers of asphalt to expose rails paved over years before, to provide access to a car barn. There are still six trolley routes in Phila., but they may be abandoned for motor buses if state funding is not forthcoming. Pity.

[OrthoSean]

I'll continue the O/T a little about Trolley service in Albany. It was apparently discontinued around 1945 or 6 in Albany once city busses became more "practical" from what I've been reading. Lately I've been doing a lot of research using the Talking Machine World and Music Trades Review to locate just where the "hot spots" were downtown. My 90 year old Grandmother fondly recalls taking the trolley all the way from Delaware and Second Ave all the way down to this area to shop every Saturday. The Strand Temple was always a stop for one or two of the latest Victor records in the later 1920s, she remembers it well. The trolleys ran in a large loop from the west end (Delaware and Second) all the way downtown and as far up as the Pine Hills section of the city, which was more of a suburban part of the city at the time. There was also a connecting line that ran further up the Delaware "Turnpike" as it was called at the time into the town of Bethlehem, where I live, which was very much "country" then. This stuff just fascinates me. Much of the Pine Hills neighborhood still retains most of the charm that it had so many decades ago. There are many parts of the city where trolley tracks are still quite visible.

Sean

[marcapra]

Frank, You asked how do I know it's a model 100 if there is no ID plate saying so. Columbia phonos to my knowledge never used maker's plates on there floor models. On my Columbia Viva Tonal 800 the model number is given in the big decal under the hood. but on the old Grafonolas there is no model number. I use Robert Baumbach's out of print Columbia Phonograph Companion vol. 2 where he shows old ads and describes the different models. Many of the model numbers were based on the price, so you have a $100 model, a $150 model and so on. The difference lies largely in the shape of the cabinet and the record storage system.

[De Soto Frank]

Several blocks on that side of Lackawanna Ave. were demolished some years (15-20?) ago to make way for the Steamtown Mall and a parking deck, which are the newer buildings in the photo, so the sites of the stores referred to are history. There is still viable retail along the avenue.

Was discussing this with friends this evening, who are native Scrantonians ( I am a transplanted Baltimorean )...


The South side of Lackwanna Ave (the left side in the photo), between Washington Avenue and Mifflin Avenue (about four contiguous blocks) were razed in the early 1990's, to make way for the Steamtown Mall. I remember the day they imploded those blocks: they chose a Sunday morning, and I was in the choir loft at St. Peter's Cathedral, about two blocks north, for the choral mass (10:30 AM?); we heard air-horns blast the warning, then a few moments later, there was a muffled "boom", and then we felt a shudder as the buildings came down.

The buildings on the North side of Lackawanna Ave were replaced at various times; several of the old mercantile buildings were destroyed by various fires in the 1960's and '70's (Scranton Talking Machine Co. among them), and their sites turned into parking lots.

When the Mall went-up, they also built a new movie theatre at the corner of Lackwanna & Penn Avenues, and connected that to the Mall by an enclosed pedestrian bridge right at the site of Scranton Talking Machine.

There remain some of the grand old buildings from the late 19th / early 20th Centuries along Lackawanna Ave, but some of the best are history... along with the Scranton Traction Company.

[De Soto Frank]

Frank, You asked how do I know it's a model 100 if there is no ID plate saying so. Columbia phonos to my knowledge never used maker's plates on there floor models. On my Columbia Viva Tonal 800 the model number is given in the big decal under the hood. but on the old Grafonolas there is no model number. I use Robert Baumbach's out of print Columbia Phonograph Companion vol. 2 where he shows old ads and describes the different models. Many of the model numbers were based on the price, so you have a $100 model, a $150 model and so on. The difference lies largely in the shape of the cabinet and the record storage system.

I need to find a copy of Baumbach's Columbia book...

Victor is fairly straight-forward with their model designations, but sometimes Columbia seems to be a hodge-podge...


I found some Columbia ads online that suggest my machine was the $100 "Mignonette".

[marcapra]

The Mignonette was the ancestor of your 100. The early 1911 models had very straight sides with doors over the horn and a door over the record area. It did not have a tilt out bin, but record slats for storage. In 1912 it got the tone leaves. I believe yours is a model 100 which came out in 1915 and was made until about 1918 at which time Columbia changed over to an alpha numeric model designation, such as E-2 and F-2. At extra cost, you could get the push button record selector then. I wanted to get one of those push button machines, but I was told that often all the felt and material inside has rotted away, hence providing little protection for your records today. Columbia went bankrupt in the early 20s, then came out again in 1924 with The New Columbias. The New Columbias were only made for a couple of years before they came out with the new Viva Tonal machines designed to play the new electric records. So they are kind of rare. The Viva Tonals were only made for a couple of years also, so they too are somewhat rare compared to Victrola at least. Oh I forgot to say the Baumbach Columbia book vol. 2 is available for download to your Ipad.

[marcapra]

I just did an internet search for the Ipad version of the Columbia vol 2 book and all I got were Amazon hits which just said it was out of print. Mullholland Press is where you need to go. They sell phonograph related books like Look for the Dog by Baumbach. But I finally found it. Since the ad says there is new information and some color pictures, I am going to download for my Ipad. Here's the link:

http://mulhollandpress.com/Columbia.htm

[De Soto Frank]

Marc,

Thanks for the additional info and link to Mullholland.


I do not have an I-pad, and have resisted digital readers...


Hopefully I will find a print edition somewhere...