The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

As I was working on my Gem, I was admiring the casting of the case. What a piece of engineering that was to cast and finish this case.
Dave D

25 years ago I took an Edison Home to a machinist to have him press a bearing or something in it. He kept the whole machine for a few weeks to take to some sort of Machinist's show he was going to, not to play the thing, but to show the kind of work those guys did 100 years ago and considered it production work. He told me when I went to pick it up that the whole machine was very interesting to most of the guys at that show and I remember him saying that the first part of the last century was certainly an age of artisans in this country and that even though those guys worked long hours and weeks, they were proud of what they were doing and it really showed in something like an ordinary cylinder phonograph. That guy does work on all sorts of really valuable antique car engines. But he said the really impressing thing about the little phonograph was that they could do all that work and sell it to a very average family for a good price.

EarlH wrote:But he said the really impressing thing about the little phonograph was that they could do all that work and sell it to a very average family for a good price.

I once read that Henry Ford learned a thing or two about mass production from Thomas Edison; bringing down the production costs of light bulbs being a prime example.