The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Bruce,
I just sent three photos to David. The upright is the 'Peerless'. Further complicating the mechanism, it should be mentioned that there are two seperate feed screws -- one for 2m, the other 4m! I used to have a Junior that was 2m only with only one reproducer in the capsule and provision for only one feedscrew on the casting . . . looked factory to me, though -- not sure.
John M

Here are the other two photos:

That’s definitely an interesting machine—thanks for sharing it with us, John.

— MordEth

Really a very interesting and beautiful machine. Do you recall whether it had a decal of sort underneath the lid? Truly a one of a kind. Thanks alot for posting the pics. Did you hear it play at all? Was wondering how it might sound. I recall the dual feedscrew thing too. I'd forgotten about that as my Junior is in MN. I think they made a straight two minute too for a very short time but I could be mistaken.

Cheers, Bruce

Look what I found. This is the Opera. By the way, regarding the dual feedscrew, I wonder if this was another mechanical complication introduced to get around Edison patents? Now we need someone to post some pictures of the "Banner" and the brocure with the price list and we'd have a pretty good picture of their first, and almost last product offering!

Was there any type of mechanical benefit to having the dual-feed screw, or was this merely something to differentiate them from other manufacturers?

I was kind of wondering if it was much like the razor blade arms race (The Gillette War?)—after you have so many blades, the additional ones are rather redundant, but it seems each company wants to brag up that they have the most blades...

— MordEth

David I would really like to invite the opinions of others because my thoughts are just speculation. Having looked and compared these machines to Edison, I can't see a technical advantage to the overly complicated reproducer, (essentially two reproducers side by side) and two feedscrews (side by side). It must have been only to get around patent issues. But????

I'm certain dual feed screws and dual reproducers -- as well as flexible taper tubes -- were all designed to circumvent Edison's patents. So late in the game it wouldn't have made sense to produce a more complicated and expensive-to-manufacture mechanism for no good reason.

Those photos were taken 25 years ago . . . I can't remember if there was a decal on the lid or not . . . the machine was a basket case when Paul got it . . . I don't know if anyone was producing credible decals back then. The US decal is very unassuming anyway!

It sounded good as best as I recall.

BTW, there was yet another model similar to a table model Amberola called the 'Rex' (apologies for bringing that up! )

Worth mentioning, too, that all but the 'Rex' had 6" mandrels.

John M

Valecnik wrote:Really a very interesting and beautiful machine. Do you recall whether it had a decal of sort underneath the lid?

Here's a page from our 2001 book, Phonographs With Flair. As you can see, the Peerless had its own distinctive lid decal.

George P.

That US Opera cabinet looks very much like the cabinet Dean linked from eBay.

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... ?f=2&t=485

So Bellm wound up with it. I was in Sarasota a couple of weeks ago and passed by the museum, but all the musical stuff is gone now, isn't it?

John M