The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Has anyone ever seen one of these?

What an extraordinary thing! Was there a cylinder player in one of the side compartments and a disc player in the other?

Oliver Mundy.

Found this re-published ad in a 1987 Publication contained within the online searchable archives from the Antique Phonograph Society website.

Gerhard Heintzman was the fourth in the list of major Toronto piano manufacturers in the years before 1930. The others were, in order of influence, Heintzman and Company, Mason and Risch, and Nordheimer , with Gerhard Heintzman bringing up the rear. This isn't to say they made a second rate instrument, but they never seemed to establish themselves as firmly as the others. Gerhard Heintzman was the nephew of Theodore Heintzman, founder of Heintzman and Company, the premier Canadian firm. This often leads to confusion in the popular mind about just who made what and for whom. Most of the Canadian piano manufacturers ( but not Heintzman and Co.) flirted with a line of phonographs as the basic Berliner patents expired in the teens.Gerhard Heintzman of them all seemed to throw themselves into the phonograph business in a big way. It might have been misguided, because the firm slid slowly downhill during the 20s, and was eventually absorbed by Heintzman and Co, which kept the Gerhard name as their less expensive line. By that time the phonograph line was long gone: I suspect...I have no documentation...that the phonograph department ended about 1923.
As an aside, Heintzman and Co. didn't need to make a phonograph of their own: they were the Toronto jobbers for the Berliner Gram-o-phone Co, and the huge downtown store featured Victrolas galore.