The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Like many phonograph and gramophone dealers in the early days, L & A Wilkinson at Number 26 (where?) hedged their bets. Their main business appears to have been stationers. An Edison advert can be seen at pavement level, and there are cylinders on the top shelf towards the right.

The advert for Raphael Tuck & Sons, postcard manufacturers, is also of interest. Between the wars they made a series of postcards incorporating records, with the slogan "They play, sing and talk".

Were the three ladies shop assistants, or were they just posing for the photographer?

Silas Hocking, who is named on the large advertisement just to the left of the lady in black, was a popular Cornish novelist. Because of the prominence given to him, I thought that Messrs. Wilkinson's shop might have been located in Cornwall; however, http://www.picturesheffield.com/fronten ... ction=zoom shows the same image and places the shop in Norfolk Market Hall, Sheffield, Yorkshire. At least, however, we have a date, since Hocking's novel The Squire's Daughter was published in 1906.

Oliver Mundy.

Thank you Oliver. Great detective work.

Roger.

I have several Tuck postcard records. I made my first YouTube video about them. Poor lighting, unfortunately, but at least you can hear the record OK.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af6UTFhrj9A[/youtube]

Here is a seldom seen product of Raphael Tuck & Sons, a "Magic Gramophone".

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Vintage-toy- ... %7Ciid%3A1

A similar toy, a cardboard gramophone, was also sold in Spain in my infancy. It was marketed by a well known pastry and bread company, CroPan. The records used were small 3" traslucent colored celluloid, one-sided, which came in decorated paper sleeves and were given away with the cakes. You were supposed to make a collection of them, maybe there were 50-60 different ones. The series was entitled "Te hablan los grandes guerreros" (The Great Warriors Speak To You). The records featured figured speeches from famous historic characters, as Ulysses, Simon Bolivar, Zapata or other heros from the Old Times or the Mythology.
As soon as my brothers and I spotted the records, began to look after the player, which was sold at a cheap price in the dairy & bakery stores. The problem was that as soon as the records appeared in the market, the players were sold out. We run over many bakeries in our surroundings, until we managed to find one shop that still had record players. It was a simple folded cardboard sheet, which had the needle in one corner of the raised portion, which also acted as resonator. The flat portion was where the record had to be attached by its center to a small plastic button, then rotated with the finger to hear the speech. Nice toy. The records always ended with the sentence "Es una grabación CroPan" (This is a Cropan recording).

I've just looked for them in the web, and I've found some photos, and heavy prices...! Spanish auction sites have the records at prices of Euro 20/each, and the player with some records is sold for a mere €175-200...!