The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Bought a Victor III recently and came with this strange but reallly unique horn . It has a place for a hanger as if it was originally a EDISON aftermarket but has all victor mount in back. The red paint goes all the way through the 2 sections inside and the 2nd part of the horn matches the front. Any one seen one like this before. Think it is original aftermarket?

I'm sorry to say, but I think this is a cylinder horn made to "fit" a Victor elbow.
Harvey Kravitz

Before giving an opinion it would be nice to see the small end of the horn without the elbow.

Jerry Blais

Weren’t there some aftermarket horns that were marketed as cylinder phongraph horns, but could be cut down for disc machines?

Jerry is right. The exposed small end of the horn will have enough evidence to tell whether it is a correct double use horn or something that has been butchered. Cheers, Russie Ofria

I would say its not rare Victor horn but an after market horn to fit a Victor machine.
Larry

The horn is clearly marked on the hanger as being a product of a well-known horn manufacturer: the Standard Metal Manufacturing Company. There are some legitimate disc horns that were factory-modified from cylinder horn inventory (For instance, Star used Hawthorne & Sheble cylinder horns with hangers on many of its front-mount machines). As noted by others above, the only question is what the small end of the horn looks like.

George P.