The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I wanted to resurrect a thread that we had on the old server here:

The original photo of Alma Gluck was posted by VictrolaGuy - Walt from the Library of Congress’s collection.

I just cut it out with an oval, primarily to add it to our stock avatar gallery.

— MordEth

This was posted in this thread the last time around (I forget who the original poster was—please take credit for your contribution), but since Rocky was asking about having an enlargement of it that he could print, I had a go at seeing what I could do with it in Photoshop.

(Click on the image or this link for an 7.98" x 10" [300 DPI—8.2 MB] PNG of it)

I did a test print of the linked PNG, and it looks quite good on matte photo paper, despite being blown up from a digital image.

Edit: Please note that because the linked image is as large as it is, you probably would want to right-click on the link, and select ‘Save Link As...’ from the context menu which appears when you right-click the link, rather than viewing it. Generally this is an easier way to save linked images.

The wording above is for Firefox; other browsers offer the same feature but word it differently.

— MordEth

Sean demands that I re-post this picture of Alma Gluck (since I was hosting it for him), but stipulates that Walt must post Ernest Borgnine in response.

— MordEth

No, please don't! Those images are mentally disturbing!

3victrolas wrote:No, please don't! Those images are mentally disturbing!

OK, OK, I won’t try to hunt down that picture to post for him, then...

Instead, let me share yet another thing that I realized I had not, yet...Richard J’s posted photo (that I cleaned up in Photoshop) of an acoustic recording session in 1916:

(Click on the image or this link for a 996 x 1020 pixel JPEG of it.)

I believe that this may have been for Columbia; hopefully he can post and confirm that one way or the other.

— MordEth

I have quite a few real photos with phonographs in the scenes. This one is probably one of my favorites since I'm a motorhead too. The motorcycle is a 1912 Henderson which was the first year manufactured, that company later became the Indian motorcycle company. There are two phonographs in the back of the scene, one I believe is a Columbia BI with nickelled horn, the other looks to be maybe a Columbia BN with painted horn.

Pretty cool old store....I love the oil stains on the floor. That would be a major lawsuit today is someone slipped on it.

scanned section of prior photo:

ColoradoPhonograf wrote:I have quite a few real photos with phonographs in the scenes. This one is probably one of my favorites since I'm a motorhead too.

ColoradoPhonograf,

Thanks for sharing this—it’s a great photo. I know very little about motorcycles (and even less about them historically), but it’s interesting to me to see vintage photos of them.

ColoradoPhonograf wrote:There are two phonographs in the back of the scene, one I believe is a Columbia BI with nickelled horn, the other looks to be maybe a Columbia BN with painted horn.

I zoomed the full-sized photo (as opposed to the scaled one that appears inline here), but I couldn’t make out the models. Of course, my knowledge of external horn machines is still lacking—most of the machines I can recognize on sight (or be close to guessing what they are) were made by Victor, and have an internal horn.

ColoradoPhonograf wrote:Pretty cool old store....I love the oil stains on the floor. That would be a major lawsuit today is someone slipped on it.

Back then I think they believed in a little more personal responsibility.

— MordEth

Great posting! I especially liked the guy in the photogallery with his Edison Standard and records. Can you imagine today someone getting a picture taken of themselves standing in front of their flatscreen TV displaying his DVD collection? (I suppose a few do it). Anyway my point was these types of pictures, I've seen many, really indicate how significant it must have been to actually OWN A PHONOGRAPH at the end of 19th, beginning of the 20th century. Thanks alot.

valecnik wrote:... Can you imagine today someone getting a picture taken of themselves standing in front of their flatscreen TV displaying his DVD collection?

Valecnik,

I was thinking about trying to take a picture of myself with all of my MP3s, but I still have not figured out how to hold them up in front of the camera.

I do really like that cylinder photo, though, and was glad to be able to get a printable size of it up for Rocky. Hopefully I can get a few more photos in this thread soon—I think I have more stuff floating around.

— MordEth