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Now, I've seen Model A Homes with the early red banner, but this one appears to combine a 'suitcase' top works with a black banner base. Is this variation known to occur, or is it a 'marriage'?

Bill

http://hartford.craigslist.org/atq/3932198279.html

The majority of the Model A Homes had this decal and it was used on the first quarter (or so) on the Model B Homes. Jerry
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I wrote the above about midnight after shopping the Portland Expo antique sale all day long. George's answer below makes more sense. It looks to me like a marriage of parts between a suitcase Home top works and a long green Home case and metal deck. If it was a transition machine you would expect to see the same decal as used on the suitcase Home but applied in the lower case.

I saw this as well and it surely appears to be the top works of a suitcase Home Phonograph mounted on the late model A Home Phonograph with the common gold / black banner decal. What's also interesting on this one is the guy says it "works great" but "it does not include the crank". Hmmm...does that mean he has the crank and will not include it in the sale because it is the early (hard to find and pricey!) style suitcase Home crank? Or he really has no crank for it. Yet it "works great". I suppose a phone call could answer the questions so speculation would be removed. Seems a little odd to me though.

- Doug

I just looked at the pictures of this Home Phonograph again and you can clearly see the crank laying on the table next to it. It appears to be the common slotted model A Home Phonograph crank as opposed to the early hard to find stubby one. So, it appears that he definitely has a crank that will work even if it may not be correct for the suitcase Home works that are represented in the pictures.

- Doug

Definitely an earlier mechanism dropped into a later cabinet.

George P.

Yes, no question. But it's worth noting that when Edison first came out with "New Style" cabinets, customers with older machines could buy an empty, modern cabinet to recase their earlier machines. On page 31 if the 1901 catalog there's a list of "New Style Cabinets". The empty Home cabinet was priced at $3.50, versus $30 for a new Home Phonograph.

That said, I would expect to find the red banner on the lower cabinet. I'm not sure how long Edison continued to offer empty cabinets.