The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hello,
Just thought that some of you might enjoy seeing a couple pictures I took of an early Graphophone that was at a local museum.
Pete

Hi Pete. To bad that Museum wasn't in your house. Thanks for posting the picture, it's a beautiful machine.

Rich Gordon

Wow, what a rare beauty! I always dream about stumbling across one of these at a flea market or barn sale

Thanks for sharing.
Andreas

Seems a sewing machine metamorphosed to phonograph!

This machine sits in the Alexander Graham Bell Museum in Baddeck Nova Scotia.
Pete

Pretty tough to beat a treadle powered Bell-Tainter!

I saw Graphophone #1 in April, 2016. And got to touch it, and thoroughly examine it. That was an experience I'll never forget.

Thanks for sharing!

Best,
Fran

doublemike wrote:Seems a sewing machine metamorphosed to phonograph!

Very similar, but on inspection most if not all is specially cast. Sewing machines do not have the drive wheel on the left.

Does that look like a nine cylinder to play.?? That is a great machine. Tom B

Is that simply a rubber covering on the mandrel, or is there actually a cylinder there?

I have been wondering whether any cylinders of the Bell-Tainter type have survived in playable condition. The E.M.I. collection in England has a battery-powered Graphophone (later than this one, since it includes an alternative Edison-sized mandrel) together with a whole crate of cylinders of the original pattern, but I think they are only blanks.

Oliver Mundy.

It was my understanding that the factory that built the early Columbia machines was formerly a sewing machine factory.