Perfected Graphophone Type G - Wild Find

[Curt A]

How is the cylinder put on the mandrel? Do you pull the knob on the right and remove the mandrel and install the cylinder and reinstall mandrel and push knob in? Never seen this before.

Yes, the mandrel has a "plunger" on the right that you pull to remove the mandrel. The cylinder is then installed and the mandrel put back in place for each different cylinder to be played. It is rather inconvenient... The cylinders also play from right to left.

[phonogfp]

The Bell-Tainter machines work the same way.

In this context, you can appreciate what an improvement the Type N Graphophone was over its predecessors.

George P.

[EdisonWizard]

How is the cylinder put on the mandrel? Do you pull the knob on the right and remove the mandrel and install the cylinder and reinstall mandrel and push knob in? Never seen this before.

Yes, the mandrel has a "plunger" on the right that you pull to remove the mandrel. The cylinder is then installed and the mandrel put back in place for each different cylinder to be played. It is rather inconvenient... The cylinders also play from right to left.

Learned something new today, thanks!

[MicaMonster]

Congratulations, Curt!!!! A Victrola XX, and now this!!?!?!?!? AMAZING. This is Very inspiring to all of us. I always stop at antique shops....even the polished ones......never know what you will find. That...THAT is a bucket list machine for me, right after a real tinfoil. Still waiting to find one of those "manually operated hand lathe's" in the wild!

-Wyatt

[Curt A]

Thanks for all of the comments... You never know what lurks around the next corner... The hunt is what makes it interesting.

A guy in our club found an Auxetophone at a junk shop for $130, with a 20% discount...

[Curt A]

Curt,

Congratulations on a spectacular find!! I'm glad that you were able to make a deal and get it, the phonograph gods are definitely smiling on you. I look forward to seeing it in person.

Mike

Mike,

After seeing it in person, I guess you really liked it.... it truly is a small time capsule with the ads, tickets, playlist of the moldy brown wax cylinders and hearing tubes... even part of an envelope dated 1898 from a Graphophone dealer in Sioux City, IA.

[Mlund2020]

Mike
After seeing it in person, I guess you really liked it.... it truly is a small time capsule with the ads, tickets, playlist of the moldy brown wax cylinders and hearing tubes... even part of an envelope dated 1898 from a Graphophone dealer in Sioux City, IA.

Curt,
It is really a fantastic piece that displays as a great vignette of an early traveling Graphophone exhibition show. I believe that it is all original and correct with the early original advertising posters and phonograph show tickets. I do believe that this is not the correct reproducer though. The reproducer seems to be a later model. I will work on tracking down an early Graphophone reproducer.

[Phonofreak]

I believe the correct reproducer should be a black gutta-percha one. This could be an upgrade, because the original ones sounded awful. Especially since this was used for exhibitions. The Aluminum ones came out around 1897, and the dates on the ephemera is 1898.
Harvey Kravitz

[Lucius1958]

The Bell-Tainter machines work the same way.

In this context, you can appreciate what an improvement the Type N Graphophone was over its predecessors.

George P.

Interesting, as the Type G came out after AGCo had abandoned the ozocerite cylinders: but they still stuck to the older design used on the "adapted" Bell-Tainter models...

Bill

[Mlund2020]

I believe the correct reproducer should be a black gutta-percha one. This could be an upgrade, because the original ones sounded awful. Especially since this was used for exhibitions. The Aluminum ones came out around 1897, and the dates on the ephemera is 1898.
Harvey Kravitz

That is a great thought Harvey, and it would certainly make since given the time line. It definitely seems unusual that with everything else as complete as it is (even down to the detailed ledger listing the many cylinders and playlists) that the original reproducer would be the only thing missing. However, yours seems like a very plausible explanation.