The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

When did they have this type of display? I’ve actually have never been there but it seem in more recent years what I’ve seen in photos and videos this display is gone. Why? And for those who remember: what are your experiences seeing it?

I remember back in the 80s or 90s I think it was, the Edison House had deteriorated so badly it was in danger of being torn down. Apparently, the city was taking all of the money the house earned and not putting anything back into upkeep or renovation. It had gotten so bad, the Edison Historic Site threatened to take back all of the artifacts it had loaned to the site. I'm not sure exactly what happened after that, but perhaps that is what happened to some of these phonographs. I do know the city reversed its policy of taking the money from them and things were turned around. I was there a couple of years ago and it was quite nice. Hopefully, someone with a better memory of this will chime in and correct any errors I have made.

Here’s a post card for another place in Florida that displayed vintage cars and phonos. What does anybody know about this place? Apparently the cars are now at the Sarasota Classic Car museum but where’s the music?

I tried poking around Google for a while, but wasn’t having any luck finding anything to answer your question. You might try posting on the Facebook page for Bellm‘s Cars & Music of Yesterday. The phone number and address they list were probably originally for Bellm, but now are used by the Sarasota Classic Car Museum which replaced it.

My family lives about 30 miles from there, ironically enough.

Regards,

David

This museum was located in the Sarasota/ Bradenton area of Florida. I lived there when I was in the fourth grade and accredit this place and my visiting it for the sickness I now have of collecting these musical wonders. My first machine I ever heard was a demonstration of an Amberola 75 and that was back in 1978 I believe. It was owned by Walt Bellm who earrned his money by running a trucking business. I was fortunate enough to attend the auction of this same establishment back in the early 90s where most of the phonographs and musical items were sold along with a lot of the car collection.

Regards, Wes

Back in the ‘80’s, my wife and I took several vacations into Florida. We live in Georgia. I remember the Edison estate, both the phono collection in the museum and the rundown condition of the house. We also went to Bellm’s on a couple of occasions. They had a huge collection of phonos, but their main musical theme was bandorgans, player pianos, and nickelodeons. The most impressive item to me was a Mortier band organ that was the size of a small house. It was a really amazing thing when they turned it on. Yes, I heard that a lot of it was sold off. Regrettably, I never got to go see Eakins’ Gay Nineties Village in Sikeston, MO. I heard it was a wonder to see!

I went to both places in the 1970s. Walts place was impressive because they had the big victor units like 10-50s on SHELVES. I took a lot of real pictures. When I find them I'll post.

AmberolaAndy wrote:Here’s a post card for another place in Florida that displayed vintage cars and phonos. What does anybody know about this place? Apparently the cars are now at the Sarasota Classic Car museum but where’s the music?

I love how they have all those beautiful Edison machines up on the wall, but they chose to put a GEM on the Herzog Full Barrel

In picture postcard no.1 there is a Concert machine using a Cygnet horn with no obvious means of support. POOR THING !!!

While I can see no obvious crane there, perhaps they jury-rigged something to hold the spring to the shelf above. That seems more likely to me than somehow attaching something at the neck to keep that Cygnet from leaning and crashing to the floor. The spring looks straight up like it is attached to the shelf above.

But, look two machines to the left of it. What the heck is that? It sort of looks like an Opera with a typical Cygnet stuffed into it.

Apologies for continuing the critique and getting away from the original thread.