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I don't think I have actually seen a picture of one of these really early wire recorders before. I have however seen the pictures of the recorders used in the 1930's which used steel ribbon as the recording medium. The BBC certainly had one of these machines (and probably more) whic were used to record programmes for later boradcast. They also ran at high speed but had to be shut in their own room when running for safety reasons and it the steel ribbon broke it would do a lot of damage. I belive that the machine was of German maunfacture.

RJ

Here is a bit more info I have found on those steel tape machines. This is taken from a web page detailing the history of the BBC world service that you can find in full here: BBC World Service - history

Copied text:

Because the new Empire Service would be broadcasting the same programmes to different parts of the world, it needed recording equipment.

One way was to record on to wax discs, but these lasted only a few minutes. Longer recordings were achieved using magnetic tape, a system still in its infancy.

The BBC chose a design by German inventor Ludwig Blattner, which used a tape made of thin steel. Its engineers modified these “Blattnerphones” by improving the motor to give a more stable tape speed; and narrowing the tape width from 6mm to 3mm.

By 1932 it was possible to record 32 minutes of sound on them. But there was still enough doubt about their reliability (broken tape was a regular occurrence) for the BBC’s director general Sir John Reith, on the Empire Service’s opening day, to deliver his 12 minute address live on five separate occasions, between 9.30am and 1.00am the next day. "I was very bored with it," he said afterwards in his diary.

A more reliable technique came later in the decade with the introduction of MSS recorders, which cut recordings on metal discs covered in a lacquer called shellac.

These disc recorders - looking like complicated gramophones - were developed during the war years to make them smaller and more portable for outside broadcast use.


Here is a link that gives an example of the quality of recording these machines were capable of:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/chec ... m=1&nbwm=1

RJ

Here's that Silvertone phono / radio / wire machine again...

1947 Silvertone Phonograph, Radio, Wire Recorders (Superior, WI) - $375
http://minneapolis.craigslist.org/hnp/c ... 58817.html

Just was going though my 1948 spring and summer Sears and recalled some interest in wire recorders. Here are the two in this issue.

Larry,
Thanks for posting those advertisements! That top one is the model my grandparents bought... I'll have to show that to my Dad.