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Wasn't that Tea Tray from N.J.?

Bill

Well, that one's not quite so simple. During the late 1890s-1902 or so, Hawthorne & Sheble used diamond-shaped hangers (sometimes with the company name embossed on them!), and the Standard Metal Manufacturing Company also used a very similar diamond design. It can be impossible to tell them apart during that period. H&S even briefly used a nondescript tab hanger, but with an "H" embossed on one side and an "S" on the other (see below)! Then Standard obtained a trademark on the diamond design, so H&S had to come up with something else, which is the one pictured above, and found on virtually all its suspended horns from then on.

The Tea Tray Company (also of Newark, N.J.) usually used a nondescript tab hanger (similar to the H&S shown below)on its "Standard Amplifying Horn For Talking Machines" and its later flower horns. Fortunately, Tea Tray was pretty good about marking its merchandise either with decals or patent dates!

George P.

But unfortunately, many Tea Tray horns have been re-finished to the point that decals disappeared.

Bill

Amberola 1-A wrote:But unfortunately, many Tea Tray horns have been re-finished to the point that decals disappeared.

Bill

Doesn't that just fry your oysters?

George P.

Yep, it does George. But when I see those concave petals on the MG horns and that triangular hanger, I can be almost assured it's a Tea Tray product.

Thanks for the information. While on the subject, I have had a horn for awhile and would love to know the maker. Here it is:








Someone has started to clean/polish the top six inches or so and I am planning on finishing the job when I get the time. I haven't ever used it because I don't have a proper crane. It's 24" long and has a 14" bell which is larger than I would think normally found on a 24" horn.

It has triangular shaped hangers that appear to have been soldered by a "handy man" at some point. Is this style of hanger common to any particular maker? If not, do the dimensions give a clue, or is this a common size horn? I would love to know who made it.

Thanks again for the help.

Sonny,

That's a tough one. The tab hanger doesn't help us much, but the manner in which the bell and body are joined, and the general lines of the horn suggest Hawthorne & Sheble. It's only an educated guess, though.

George P.

Amberola 1-A wrote:Yep, it does George. But when I see those concave petals on the MG horns and that triangular hanger, I can be almost assured it's a Tea Tray product.

You're right about the concave petals - - Tea Tray had control of Charles Eichorn's Design patent (No.38,202) for those concave petals. But the only time I've seen them with a diamond-shaped hanger is on Edison horns where the Standard Metal Manufacturing Company was manufacturing them under license from Tea Tray.

I'd be grateful to learn of a marked Tea Tray horn (decals intact) using a diamond hanger. The only Tea Tray hangers I'm familiar with are tabs (soldered on earlier horns, but usually riveted on flower horns).

George P.