Oddball Harris Electric Phonograph

[Uncle Vanya]

As I suspected!

A General Industries "Green Flyer" electric motor.

[scullylathe]

That's by G.I.?? Didn't know they'd been around that long! Did they make mechanical phonographs and if so how early? I know they made the 'two arm' home recording lathe mechanisms for many years; probably even the old brown crinkle paint units with the pickup arm behind the TT instead of opposite the cutting arm as in the later more familiar units. Is there any publication or a good website with any history on G.I.? Curious about them now since I thought they were a later ('40's forward) manufacturer. My interest in this lies with early recording technology since another manufacturer that I collect is Presto Recording Corp. They started out in the early 1900's as Presto Products and made metal parts for Sonora phonographs, so their history reaches back to the mechanical era.

[Uncle Vanya]

General Industries can be traced back to the Garford company of Elyria, OH, makers of bicycles and, between 1903 and 1913 or so, fine automobiles.

It appears that the Garford company was looking for products to make after the discontinuation of motor-car manufacture. They were approached by Otto Heineman, and began producing the European-style spring motors as subcontractors for the OkeH company.

Most "Motors of Quality' were made in Elyria. IN the 'thirties they designed their own simplified version of the Heineman Junior portable motor, and their famous Green Flyer electric motor. Most of the spring driven machines of the 'thirties, 'forties and 'fifties (tape recorders and Instructographs included) made in the US used GI motors.

[OrthoFan]

Is that General Industries Co., Elyria, OH? If so, they were around during the acoustic/early electric phono era -- http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... clnk&gl=us

Here's a patent filed in 1927 -- http://www.google.com/patents?id=FstmAA ... &q&f=false

(I spotted other references to acoustic portables, probably from the 1930s/40s on Google.)

Not sure if this is the same company, but according to the information on this site, Arkansas General Industries, Inc. was originally founded in Elyria, Ohio in 1903, but relocated to Arkansas in 1958 - http://www.argenind.com/main.asp?sel=Co ... e=aboutagi


According to a 1932 reference I spotted, the Green Flyer motor had been in production for 17 years up to that point. -- http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=& ... =&gs_rfai=

[Uncle Vanya]

Yes, General Industries of Elyria, OH was originally the Garford Manufacturing Company, a bicycle maker which relocated from a small, elderly plant on Columbus Road in Cleveland OH to Elyria in 1903, where they commenced the manufacture of the large and powerful Garford automobile.

[OrthoFan]

Hi UV,

Many thanks.

BTW, I spotted this today and thought I'd pass it along.

http://www.antiqueradios.com/forums/vie ... 4b38f332db

It appears to be a newer/later version of the model being discussed, or at least it shares some of the same components.

[scullylathe]

Yes the Elyria OH company is the same that made the home recording lathes; I looked at their current website and their market is electric motors and "value added assemblies" which would describe the home recorder units. Many companies used these for their own recorder or radio/recorder machines and I would even bet that although the recorder mechanisms in the Wilcox-Gay 'Recordio' units has a different appearance, it was probably made by G.I. and mounted in the Recordio cabinets. Wilcox-Gay was a radio and early television specialty company and probably didn't have the tooling or production lines to produce turntable/lathe assemblies, like the other manufacturers such as Meissner, Masco, Sears "Silvertone" products as well as Montgomery Ward items. Many others as well.