The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I was thumbing through an old auction catalogue (Sothebys) last afternoon, when I came upon a truly unusual machine: a "Personophone". It was a hand-wind cylinder phonograph with a vertical mandrel; a tone arm of cylindrical section was apparently attached to a pivoting socket on a vertical stanchion, on top of which was another socket for the horn.(Both tone arm and horn were shown in the photo, but not attached to the machine). The crank handle was set at 90 degrees to the mandrel axis, which was driven by a belt and flywheel; the whole assembly was bolted to a wooden base.

The machine was of British or European manufacture, bearing a label of the "Impersonatophone(?)" Co. of London.

Now, I cannot for the life of me imagine how such an arrangement could possibly work at all. Has anyone seen or even heard of such a machine, and why such an oddity would have been made? I have found absolutely nothing at all searching online.

Bill

It was almost certainly a "hybrid" machine to play both cylinders and discs with the cylinder mandrel in the upright position it would have been set to play records , you would rotate the machine 90 degrees so the mandrel was horizontal to play cylinders

Can you scan and upload a picture ?

I'd probably have to make a xerox of the page and take a photo of that with the webcam, unfortunately...