The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I purchased this fireside from eBay several months ago, from the photo's it didn't seem very appealing, but what intrigued me was the period modification to the bedplate in order to create an exposed speed control, the only reason for having this modification would be that the machine originally had a cygnet horn, which is largely the reason I wanted it, I'd long wanted a fireside with a cygnet and this seemed like a prime candidate for fixing up.
It came with it's lid, winding handle and original K reproducer, but the cygnet horn, back bracket and crane were unfortunately missing so I had to track down new ones

I managed to find a cygnet horn fairly quickly from a dealer, the rest took some waiting, I found a crane on a recent visit to the gramophone wizard Ian Maxted, and a reproduction back bracket showed up on ebay eventually so I snapped that up, I was still missing the crane hanger, so I went to the workshop and made one of those, and I found a couple of springs that just about work, not ideal as they're a bit too weak so I need two together to hold the horn, but it's the best I could find in my local DIY shop, I need to improve the horn connector too as that's also a bit knocked together as finding the right size of rubber hose in the UK is proving tricky but for the first time in a long time it's together and playing well again!

Congratulations on a nice looking outfit. I'd say you've been rewarded with your patience and hard work. I bought some extra large surgery hose for horn to reproducer connections and it works great. I wonder about the exposed speed control. The Fireside was introduced and the end of the external horn era and long past the era of varying brown wax speeds. If you were playing entertainment cylinders, once you had the speed regulated there would be no reason to change the speed. It's a little inconvenient the adjust the speed with the Cygnet but that's minor. Maybe the Fireside was pressed into duty as a improvised language study machine. That would necessitate frequent changes in speed as the Fireside switched from being an entertainment piece to a educational tool. That's my best guess and I'm sticking with to it.

Jerry Blais

Nice work. I'm sure it's very rewarding to get it all together. The Fireside is probably my favorite Edison cylinder machine. There is something about its compact size that just seems right, especially when equipped with a Cygnet horn.

When my collection was nearly destroyed in a house fire 25 years ago, the first machine I set out to replace was my Fireside.

Congratulations Alex, what a great result! Is this the one that turned up in Canterbury?

Orchorsol wrote:Congratulations Alex, what a great result! Is this the one that turned up in Canterbury?

Yes it's the same one you kindly collected for me, it's quite a good sounding phonograph even with the reproducer not yet been rebuilt

I like your EMG, Alex. Very jealous.

-- Grant