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Fran, I should explain that the Edison needle-cut adapter is not mine. I just took a couple of pics of it after Paul Laurens won it at the Stanton auction last year. I can ask Paul if he could take some more pics of it though. Also, the reproducer shown is not the same reproducer as the one on the portable Edisons which were made of pot metal.

marcapra wrote:Fran, I should explain that the Edison needle-cut adapter is not mine. I just took a couple of pics of it after Paul Laurens won it at the Stanton auction last year. I can ask Paul if he could take some more pics of it though. Also, the reproducer shown is not the same reproducer as the one on the portable Edisons which were made of pot metal.

Hi Marc,

Thanks for the offer, and if it's convenient for both you and Paul, I would appreciate a picture or two, but please don't go out of your way.

The pot-metal observance is an interesting one, thanks!

According to Frow the soundbox for the "Prime Manufacturing Co." portable (designed late 1928 and introduced January, 1929) shown on page 183 reportedly used a brass soundbox, and the latter "Edison designed" P-1 and P-2 portables (both introduced July, 1929) soundbox bodies are "...usually found in 'pot-metal'...".

This leads me to wonder if Prime mfg. co. might have produced the apparently "earlier" brass soundboxes for those Edisonics that may have included them, and IF after the initial supply ran out they were either cheapened up by using injection molding technology, or were produced by another company for the P-1 and P-2?

Best,
Fran

fran604g wrote: We know the Edison portables were produced with this type of soundbox.


Fran

According to Frow, only the first Edison portable was issued with the soundbox pictured (at least in the description: his illustration shows the same 'Prime' soundbox as used on the P-1 and P-2).

Bill

Lucius1958 wrote:

fran604g wrote: We know the Edison portables were produced with this type of soundbox.


Fran

According to Frow, only the first Edison portable was issued with the soundbox pictured (at least in the description: his illustration shows the same 'Prime' soundbox as used on the P-1 and P-2).

Bill

Hi Bill,

Please see my last post above.

Fran

fran604g wrote:

Lucius1958 wrote:

fran604g wrote: We know the Edison portables were produced with this type of soundbox.


Fran

According to Frow, only the first Edison portable was issued with the soundbox pictured (at least in the description: his illustration shows the same 'Prime' soundbox as used on the P-1 and P-2).

Bill

Hi Bill,

Please see my last post above.

Fran

Thanks: your post hadn't shown up yet when I posted.

Bill

fran604g wrote:

marcapra wrote:Fran, I should explain that the Edison needle-cut adapter is not mine. I just took a couple of pics of it after Paul Laurens won it at the Stanton auction last year. I can ask Paul if he could take some more pics of it though. Also, the reproducer shown is not the same reproducer as the one on the portable Edisons which were made of pot metal.

Hi Marc,

Thanks for the offer, and if it's convenient for both you and Paul, I would appreciate a picture or two, but please don't go out of your way.

The pot-metal observance is an interesting one, thanks!

According to Frow the soundbox for the "Prime Manufacturing Co." portable (designed late 1928 and introduced January, 1929) shown on page 183 reportedly used a brass soundbox, and the latter "Edison designed" P-1 and P-2 portables (both introduced July, 1929) soundbox bodies are "...usually found in 'pot-metal'...".

This leads me to wonder if Prime mfg. co. might have produced the apparently "earlier" brass soundboxes for those Edisonics that may have included them, and IF after the initial supply ran out they were either cheapened up by using injection molding technology, or were produced by another company for the P-1 and P-2?

Best,
Fran

Every part of the brass Edison "E" sound box is I terchangabk with the Columbia Viva-Tonal reproducer No.19 (the model with the back plate set to fit a male end tone arm). The rings, stylus bar and diaphragm are identical. They differ only in the design of the face plates, which may also be interchanged. I have rebuilt several if the "E"reproducers over the years, and have owned at least three, and so have had a fair amount of experience with them. I have noted that the earliest lateral adapters sold with the 1928 Edisonic machines seem to be largely made of a particularly awful pot-metal, while the later adapters (those which are usually found with a poor condition pot metal ARTO reproducer, of the sort used on the Prime portables) are largely brass, and survive quite intact.

Uncle Vanya wrote: Every part of the brass Edison "E" sound box is I terchangabk with the Columbia Viva-Tonal reproducer No.19 (the model with the back plate set to fit a male end tone arm). The rings, stylus bar and diaphragm are identical. They differ only in the design of the face plates, which may also be interchanged. I have rebuilt several if the "E"reproducers over the years, and have owned at least three, and so have had a fair amount of experience with them. I have noted that the earliest lateral adapters sold with the 1928 Edisonic machines seem to be largely made of a particularly awful pot-metal, while the later adapters (those which are usually found with a poor condition pot metal ARTO reproducer, of the sort used on the Prime portables) are largely brass, and survive quite intact.

Thank you, Uncle Vanya, for your expertise.

One thing I don't know: what is "ARTO"?

Fran

Artophone of St Louis designed an excellent lateral reproducer with an aluminum diaphragm what was sold under a great many labels (ARTO, Symphonic, Audak Single Phase, Maytona, Meteor...) as an upgrade for earlier machines. Prime manufacturing used ARTO reproducers on their 1927 portables, and subsequently purchased the tooling and offerred them to the general market. This is the general reproducer design which was offerred on those Edison machines, though of course new dies were made for the front and back plates.
P

Very interesting, thank you for the explanation.

Fran

Here are some more detailed photographs of the brass Edison sound box and one of the adapters used with it: