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Nice early Standard, Rich. The earliest Standards did not have a gear cover, nor were there any holes drilled for one. My 2 clip Standard 45XX is one of those. Does anyone know when Standards started to have gear covers?
Harvey Kravitz

Phonofreak wrote:Nice early Standard, Rich. The earliest Standards did not have a gear cover, nor were there any holes drilled for one. My 2 clip Standard 45XX is one of those. Does anyone know when Standards started to have gear covers?
Harvey Kravitz

Check Martin Kauper's Spotters Guide to Edison Standard Phonographs on the APS website:

http://www.antiquephono.org/spotters-gu ... honograph/

At the bottom of the page is a link titled "Edison Standard Data" and it shows that gear covers were first appearing by at least the early 800s, but machines lacking gear covers or their mounting holes persisted off and on until the 9000s.

Like several other characteristics in other Edison models, Standard gear covers were inconsistently supplied for a period of time (in this case, for over a year!) before becoming a regularly-included component.

George P.

I'm a sucker for suitcase Standards. I've owned very many over the years, constantly upgrading. I still have two -- one is an astonishingly mint example with serial #393 and Standard Speaker, one is a 4-clip with Bacigalupi decal and Polyphone attachment.

I used to own one with a serial number in the 200s -- it had a gear cover. Number 393 does not. Like many things with Edison, there are few clear-cut change points. Features intermix over a broad range of serial numbers.

That's a great machine. I'm sure you'll love it.

Thanks for the plug, George!

Harvey - in carefully looking over my notes I see the first regular gear guards appearing after 4918. There were a few machines with gear guards sprinkled among that first 5,000 serial numbers (some with very low numbers). Perhaps these were upgrades or warranty repairs. The last guardless machine in my current data sheet is 8322, but on looking at the note closely I couldn't see the bedplate clearly in the photo. Because of that, the last really reliable guardless machine is currently 4918. (I considered the version of the two clip machine with the guard as "typical" therefore no mention would mean:"has guard".) Obviously, these numbers could change as more examples turn up.

Rich and Gene:
Very nice machines! I am envious. Thanks for sharing.

Regards,
Martin