Never Seen These Before...

[SonnyPhono]

I came across these phonograph items and don't know much about them as I haven't seen them before. I am wondering if anyone has any input or info on any of them.

The first thing is a horn that I haven't seen before. I looks just like the conical black japanned horn with the gold stripe that are somewhat common, but this one is much larger and has two gold stripes. Is it for recording? Has anyone seen one like it before?




I was also curious about this crank. Does anyone know what machine it is from?



Last, I haven't seen this style of cylinder before. They are brown wax, (obviously) but I can't find any info on the maker. There isn't any brand on them. The rims are not flat, they are slanted. The pictures don't show this very well, but they are sloped quite a bit. The number and song titles are scratched into the slant of the rim.



For example, the middle cylinder has the following scratched into the rim:

A014 Aint She Sweet

Here is a close up. Note the smooth inside and plain box.




Does anyone know anything about these things?

[Viva-Tonal]

I can't find the name of the maker....I seem to recall it was someone in the UK....who makes available a small selection of wax cylinders dubbed from some of the hit recordings of long ago. That might be one of them....for one thing, they don't exactly look like the original brown wax cylinders tend to, moreover, if that is the 'Ain't she sweet' song I know, it dates to 1927, well after brown wax cylinders were history.

(A company called phonographcylinders.com has a version of 'Ain't she sweet' by Webb's Wonders on offer as Vulcan 307, recorded in 2004! I can't say if what you have is a copy of it though.)

[JohnM]

Paul Morris in the UK makes 'Phoenix' cylinders. I don't know if the ones in Sonny's photos are his or not.

The crank looks like a weight-winding crank for a grandfather or other large clock. Does it have a square hole?

The horn is circa 1900. There are engravings of this type horn fitted to Type B Graphophones in the Sears catalogs of the day. Any horn can be a recording horn simply by fitting a recorder rather than a reproducer to the machine. Certain horns are specifically 'recording horns', but usually recording horns are smaller and intended to record one voice.

[Neophone]

SonnyPhono,

I agree with John regarding the horn. Is it 26" long? It looks very much like the horn in the engraving of the Gem Graphophone offered by Sear, Roebuck & Co for public exhibitions, as John says, right down to the two gold stripes. Here's an image from the 1902 catalogue.


Regards,
John

[downsouth]

Boy Sunny, That horn looks just like one I picked up recently at auction in Ohio. Hehe.....
Nice meeting you there!

DSouth

[SonnyPhono]

Oh yea? What part of Ohio?

I think you did well in picking that up for that price. It was nice meeting you there as well. Did you go to the auction Monday in Cincinnati? It was posted pretty late, but there were some nice things there too. I missed out on a really nice Zon-o-phone.

[JerryVan]

The crank is an Edison that formerly had an oxidized finish, like on an Idelia, no, I'm not saying it's an Idelia crank, just that kind of finish. The oxidized patina has been all polished or worn away leaving just the copper finish.