The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

AmberolaAndy wrote:
Any of the members here own one of these BA records for the machine, or did they play at a different speed than normal BAs?

The Kinetophone cylinders are significantly larger (4 ⅜" diameter x 7 ⅜" long) than conventional Blue Amberols: (Click the image twice to enlarge and sharpen.)

AmberolaAndy wrote:Unrelated to this discussion: Zon-o-phone discs used rubber in 1900? I thought that was the thing early 5 inch berliners had?

Rubber or celluloid (I can't tell the difference by feel) was used in a very limited way in later Berliner 7" discs, Zonophone 9" discs, and even a few International Record Company (Auburn) 10" pressings.

However, and more to the point, this isn't a "company" advertisement. Foster Brothers wrote up the copy and may well have used language they thought their clientele would better understand. Note too that the illustration is of a Berliner "Improved Gramophone," so the Zonophone nomenclature may have been borrowed from Frank Seaman's brief use of it to promote the Berliner product. Zonophone machines didn't appear until April 1900, and Zonophone records didn't appear until after that, so if this ad is dated prior to April 1900, it was definitely hawking the Berliner products.

George P.

phonogfp wrote:

AmberolaAndy wrote:
Any of the members here own one of these BA records for the machine, or did they play at a different speed than normal BAs?

The Kinetophone cylinders are significantly larger (4 ⅜" diameter x 7 ⅜" long) than conventional Blue Amberols: (Click the image twice to enlarge and sharpen.)

The attachment kinetophone002.jpg is no longer available

AmberolaAndy wrote:Unrelated to this discussion: Zon-o-phone discs used rubber in 1900? I thought that was the thing early 5 inch berliners had?

Rubber or celluloid (I can't tell the difference by feel) was used in a very limited way in later Berliner 7" discs, Zonophone 9" discs, and even a few International Record Company (Auburn) 10" pressings.

However, and more to the point, this isn't a "company" advertisement. Foster Brothers wrote up the copy and may well have used language they thought their clientele would better understand. Note too that the illustration is of a Berliner "Improved Gramophone," so the Zonophone nomenclature may have been borrowed from Frank Seaman's brief use of it to promote the Berliner product. Zonophone machines didn't appear until April 1900, and Zonophone records didn't appear until after that, so if this ad is dated prior to April 1900, it was definitely hawking the Berliner products.

George P.

So this is a case of someone hyping things up to get customers excited and come to their store? The ad is dated September 21, 1900.

Newport VT library starts fund to purchase phonograph collection: October 19, 1970

Article about phonographs in an Indiana Musuem.

May 18, 1981

November 9, 1967 article about a place called The Gay 90s Melody Museum in St. Louis MO.

Has anyone been to this museum and did they have any antique phonos there? And what became of the items there after they shut down?

I have an LP called “River Bank Razzmatazz” that has audio of some of the machines from there.

I think some people here know who the guy in the article is about? Is he the auction guy?

February 17, 1965

--"Uncle Josh, whose given name was Cal Stewart, was an alleged comedian with the sense of humor of a live hand grenade..."

"--the 'music' still comes out something akin to a pail of railroad spikes being slithered slowly across a aluminum roof,"

"completely restored in two hours." Hm, maybe that has something to do with the complaints about the sound-quality!

My goodness, Andy, I don't know where you dig this stuff up but these evaluations of the hobby are pretty crazy--

VanEpsFan1914 wrote:--"Uncle Josh, whose given name was Cal Stewart, was an alleged comedian with the sense of humor of a live hand grenade..."

"--the 'music' still comes out something akin to a pail of railroad spikes being slithered slowly across a aluminum roof,"

"completely restored in two hours." Hm, maybe that has something to do with the complaints about the sound-quality!

My goodness, Andy, I don't know where you dig this stuff up but these evaluations of the hobby are pretty crazy--

I find them on newspapers.com! It can be sort of a pain because you get a lot of old auction and classified ads to sift through to find the articles!

AmberolaAndy wrote:

VanEpsFan1914 wrote:--"Uncle Josh, whose given name was Cal Stewart, was an alleged comedian with the sense of humor of a live hand grenade..."

"--the 'music' still comes out something akin to a pail of railroad spikes being slithered slowly across a aluminum roof,"

"completely restored in two hours." Hm, maybe that has something to do with the complaints about the sound-quality!

My goodness, Andy, I don't know where you dig this stuff up but these evaluations of the hobby are pretty crazy--

I find them on newspapers.com! It can be sort of a pain because you get a lot of old auction and classified ads to sift through to find the articles!

Hmmm. Can't argue with that...

gramophone-georg wrote:

AmberolaAndy wrote:

VanEpsFan1914 wrote:--"Uncle Josh, whose given name was Cal Stewart, was an alleged comedian with the sense of humor of a live hand grenade..."

"--the 'music' still comes out something akin to a pail of railroad spikes being slithered slowly across a aluminum roof,"

"completely restored in two hours." Hm, maybe that has something to do with the complaints about the sound-quality!

My goodness, Andy, I don't know where you dig this stuff up but these evaluations of the hobby are pretty crazy--

I find them on newspapers.com! It can be sort of a pain because you get a lot of old auction and classified ads to sift through to find the articles!

Hmmm. Can't argue with that...

And I mean ads for classifieds and auctions post 1945. I have to filter out certain key words like -glasswares or -silverware to filter out most of those.

Another article about another mechanical music museum! Antique phonos along with disc music boxes were featured at this one.

April 29, 2001