The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Here's a page from Phonographs with Flair by Fabrizio & Paul (click on image to sharpen):

George P.

A friend sent me this image:

These 33 rpm phonographs are interesting, but they all date from the late forties and were designed to play the modern LPs that started to appear at that time, but Iñigo mentioned advertisements of 33 rpm Victor and Columbia records dating as early as 1933, and this is the mystery! Where are the 1933 machines that play 33 rpms? It is not conceivable that these companies would sell media that could not be played, and at least in Victor's case these records were sold as commercial products called Victor Transcriptions - I have a couple. Maybe some electrical radio phonographs of the period had such capability.

The RCA "Program Transcription" records were a commercial failure, because the machines with 2-speed turntables designed to play them were too expensive. By 1933 the format was abandoned and the 2-speed turntables were no longer offered. Surviving examples must be rare today. Here is a period advertisement :

Carlos, I am a member of the Antique Radio Magazine Club, and I remember an article of the society's magazine illustrating a tube radiogram of the '30s that featured a turntable with also 33 RPM. So definitely these machines existed, although the format had no success at all at this early stage. The problem is picking up the correct magazine number. If you're struggling to see such machine, I may write to the editor: quite surely he has all the articles in digital form and may be able to search through them by search engines; just let me know.

What I still miss is period documental evidence that the speed was indeed 33 & ⅓ RPM as it is often often reported, as opposed to just plain 33 RPM.

Marco Gilardetti wrote: Wed Nov 29, 2023 4:30 am Carlos, I am a member of the Antique Radio Magazine Club, and I remember an article of the society's magazine illustrating a tube radiogram of the '30s that featured a turntable with also 33 RPM. So definitely these machines existed, although the format had no success at all at this early stage. The problem is picking up the correct magazine number. If you're struggling to see such machine, I may write to the editor: quite surely he has all the articles in digital form and may be able to search through them by search engines; just let me know.

What I still miss is period documental evidence that the speed was indeed 33 & ⅓ RPM as it is often often reported, as opposed to just plain 33 RPM.

Grazie, Marco, I am not a collector of radiograms, no need to bug your friend, your account confirms my suspicion. I remain interested in understanding more about the commercial effort that involved the introduction of such records and their consequent market failure. The mere existence of Columbia 33 rpm records in Spain that Iñigo brought up opens a whole path of investigation, as Columbia at that time only existed as a label, the company had gone under and had been bought by Gramophone Co, forming EMI in England and I suppose also in Spain and the rest of Europe. That implies that EMI had a plan to introduce these records in Spain, but not in the UK, which is intriguing, isn't it? As to the speed, I also never saw any reference to 33 ⅓ rpm. I don't remember if the speed is written on the label of the Victor Transcription record, I will try to retrieve it and check.

CarlosV wrote: Wed Nov 29, 2023 6:33 amThat implies that EMI had a plan to introduce these records in Spain, but not in the UK, which is intriguing, isn't it?

Yes, absolutely! I don't remember the details about the article I mentioned earlier, but I seem to remember quite well that the featured radiogram was Italian. Although this doesn't imply that the turntable itself was also made in Italy, however it seems at least to imply that there was the idea of introducing these records in Italy too, which is all the more intriguing.

I'll come back later with more info on these Spanish early lp records

While waiting for further details from Inigo, I have contacted the editor of the Antique Radio Magazine club, who to my highest surprise replied that he has no way to search through the articles. At this point I got obsessive about the article itself and went through all past numbers until I finally tracked it.

For the records, it's on magazine number 168. The turntable was featured on the Panarmonio 12 by CGE Italy, which was introduced at the XIV Fair of Milan in 1933. I'm attaching few pictures of the radiogram and period ads. The Panarmonio was produced "under RCA licence", and in my opinion it doesn't take much to understand that it's mostly a locally produced copy of some more or less equivalent american radio. The turntable in particular is, quite obviously, the same RCA "cobra" arm type discussed above in this thread. In period ads (in Italian, but understandable at least in the tech specs), the slower speed of 33 RPM is as usual reported as an integer number, without any mention of the eventual additional ⅓ of revolution per minute.

Marco Gilardetti wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2023 10:07 am
For the records, it's on magazine number 168. The turntable was featured on the Panarmonio 12 by CGE Italy, which was introduced at the XIV Fair of Milan in 1933. I'm attaching few pictures of the radiogram and period ads. The Panarmonio was produced "under RCA licence", and in my opinion it doesn't take much to understand that it's mostly a locally produced copy of some more or less equivalent american radio. The turntable in particular is, quite obviously, the same RCA "cobra" arm type discussed above in this thread. In period ads (in Italian, but understandable at least in the tech specs), the slower speed of 33 RPM is as usual reported as an integer number, without any mention of the eventual additional ⅓ of revolution per minute.

Nice machine, Marco! What is CGE, an Italian company? Did it have an association with RCA?