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Here is a scan of an Edison S-19 packing slip from the late 'teens. Lots of interesting info here.

CDB

Thanks! Have squirreled away a copy for future reference.

Clay

In the upper right hand corner, there is a cryptic H30R where the date should be. H is the 8th letter and R is the 18th letter of the alphabet, so could this be interpreted as Aug 30, 1918?

CDB

CDBPDX wrote:In the upper right hand corner, there is a cryptic H30R where the date should be. H is the 8th letter and R is the 18th letter of the alphabet, so could this be interpreted as Aug 30, 1918?

CDB

That's an interesting and inventive bit of de-coding, but since the S-19 was introduced in 1919, I think it's back to the drawing board!

This does bring up an interesting point, though. Why a date code? I've seen earlier packing slips with the dates plainly written. Evidently, the company was concerned about customer reactions to dates that might have been considered "old" and thus tainting merchandise as being "old stock."

George P.

Or, this could be as simple as an inspector's stamp.

Interestingly, "Contents of case" includes "1 Key" when models A100, B19, C150, H19, S19 never used a key. At least that is my recollection from those models in my collection. And "Turn Table" was 2 words back then. Serial number looks nice and high on this one. The serial number was always important to me whenever I heard of an Edison Diamond Disc Phonograph being offered for sale. Usually, a high serial number (late production machine) means late production records were most likely purchased by the original owner and may still be with it. - Doug

Hello,
When I bought my Edison oak S-19 I removed the grill and found this package tacked inside the horn area. It has the same packing slip and the original manual. I don't know why they used such a strange date code!! Why not just write the month and year on it??
Pete