Featured Phonograph no. 97 - Edison A250

[Valecnik]

Beautiful A-250, Bruce. The paint on the bedplate is in unusually nice condition. Congratulations!

George P.

Thanks George,

Another interesting bit of trivia is that this machine came with about 130 diamond discs all very early and mostly from the 80000, 82000 & 83000 series. All very clean but almost all of them cracked and/or delaminated on at least one side. In addition, it came with a 78 adapter and about 70 12 inch discs of various types, all Operatic, mostly one sided from 1906-1910 and costing between $3 and $6 dollars each.

The Antique dealer said he was told by the family who sold it to him that their great grandfather was "an audiophile". I assume he switched to Edison and kept those early expensive operatic 78s.

[FloridaClay]

A 250s are wonderful machines. I have a mahogany, #SM8355, and it is a favorite.

Clay

[fran604g]

Very nice machine. I heard a Diamond Disc for the very first time just last week at George P's, and it was awesome. So smooth and mellow, I really liked it!

[alang]

That machine is in awesome condition, thanks for sharing. I may show my ignorance here, but may I ask what that big tapered cylinder in the motor picture under the double springs is? I don't remember having ever seen that before.

Thanks
Andreas

[Valecnik]

That machine is in awesome condition, thanks for sharing. I may show my ignorance here, but may I ask what that big tapered cylinder in the motor picture under the double springs is? I don't remember having ever seen that before.

Thanks
Andreas

It shields the governor, although from what I'm not sure. The governor is suspended fairly close to the mouth of the horn. It could be that the shield was designed to block any sound resonating against it.

[zenith82]

That is a beautiful machine. I've never seen an oak A250 in person. I used to have one in mahogany, but ended up trading it a couple of years ago. They are good machines.

[coyote]

It shields the governor, although from what I'm not sure. The governor is suspended fairly close to the mouth of the horn. It could be that the shield was designed to block any sound resonating against it.

Possibly it was to shield the governor so that it did not fling oil all over the horn when using the oiler tubes. Fantastic machine!

[Andersun]

If I ever decided to own a Diamond Disc machine, that would be it! All of the features, wood grained horn, oil port caps, gilt bed plate, gold plated reproducer, Amberola 1B cabinet style, pull out drawers, make it real special machine! Thanks for posting it!

Steve

[Valecnik]

It shields the governor, although from what I'm not sure. The governor is suspended fairly close to the mouth of the horn. It could be that the shield was designed to block any sound resonating against it.

Possibly it was to shield the governor so that it did not fling oil all over the horn when using the oiler tubes. Fantastic machine!

You could be right coyote. Like the oilers on an Amberola, those oilers don't even have the felt in the ends to suppress dripping like the new standard disc mechanism later did. It appears they are just tubes that direct the oil to the designated place and let it drip everywhere. I've seen these machines that were the victim of an over zealous oiler and they can really become a mess.

If I ever decided to own a Diamond Disc machine, that would be it! All of the features, wood grained horn, oil port caps, gilt bed plate, gold plated reproducer, Amberola 1B cabinet style, pull out drawers, make it real special machine! Thanks for posting it!

Steve

I agree with you Steve. Also interesting to me is the industrial look of the motors. They all have that over engineered prototype look.

[VintageTechnologies]

Also interesting to me is the industrial look of the motors. They all have that over engineered prototype look.

Much of the Edison disk phonograph's design is engineering work-arounds dictated by Edison lawyers to avoid patent lawsuits. The motor had to be robust to propel the horn assembly. That said, the Edison disk motor is my favorite of all disk motors.