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I think that some of the first gramophones were 'hand cranked' and did not have a spring motor.

If this is correct, did the turntable have some kind of speed limiter - so it didn't ever go faster than say 78 rpm, or did it just go faster, the faster you turned the crank ? So you had to 'play it by ear' ? (Is that where the saying comes from ?).

No governor, just a flywheel. Instruction sheet gave simple advice for hand position to achieve the smoothest cranking.

poodling around wrote:I think that some of the first gramophones were 'hand cranked' and did not have a spring motor.

If this is correct, did the turntable have some kind of speed limiter - so it didn't ever go faster than say 78 rpm, or did it just go faster, the faster you turned the crank ? So you had to 'play it by ear' ? (Is that where the saying comes from ?).

Very few- if any- of those early disc records play at 78.26 rpm. You'd just crank such that the music sounded right to you. From what I understand even the recordists didn't know exactly what speed the lathes were running. And rarely the speed could vary during the entire take.

IIRC, some of the very last hand-wind "Toy" Gramophones (or early Victor) did include a governor...

-Bill

Most interesting indeed. Thank you for your replies / information.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coL7wVP ... zwebiejazz

Cheers, Bob S.

Zwebie wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coL7wVP ... zwebiejazz

Cheers, Bob S.

Wow ! Thanks Bob S.

Can you still buy replica Berliners like that one I wonder ?

And here is an original in action. The noise you hear is caused by flat spots in the now hardened rubber drive wheel under the table.
https://youtu.be/dGHl6MyDIRc I tried to make a video of my K&R Grammophon type model using one of Don's repro 5" disc's and just could not get it to play very clear. Like the US model, the rubber drive wheel under the table has too many flat spots.
https://youtu.be/3gdCi5tRYNI

Reminds me of my very first 78s... I only had an old Paillard record player, and don't remember why, the motor didn't work, so I played the records by turning the turntable by the record center with my finger. Given the weight of the record plus the heavy steel 12" turntable, and the light weight of the pickup, it sounded frankly well. I developed an instinct for running at 78 rpm...
Besides that, it had the advantage of being able to play 78s in reverse... Bing Crosby sounded like a donkey some times, and we bursted into laugh with the song 'Amor, amor'... which sounded as' Roooomaaaa... Rooomaaaaa... Roomaaa... ' still I laugh remembering that...

Inigo wrote:Reminds me of my very first 78s... I only had an old Paillard record player, and don't remember why, the motor didn't work, so I played the records by turning the turntable by the record center with my finger. Given the weight of the record plus the heavy steel 12" turntable, and the light weight of the pickup, it sounded frankly well. I developed an instinct for running at 78 rpm...
Besides that, it had the advantage of being able to play 78s in reverse... Bing Crosby sounded like a donkey some times, and we bursted into laugh with the song 'Amor, amor'... which sounded as' Roooomaaaa... Rooomaaaaa... Roomaaa... ' still I laugh remembering that...

I used to act as a human mainspring as a matter of course, in the days before I learned that broken springs could be replaced. I once played right through the 1937 set of Mozart's Magic Flute (Beecham conducting; thirty-odd sides) in this way. As a result, the fore and middle fingers of my right hand are still bent sideways, while some of my records even now bear the finger-marks between the grooves and the label more than forty years later. On the 1913 H.M.V. Intermediate Monarch gramophone which I was using in those days the governor still worked in this state, so that all I had to do was maintain a steady pressure.

Oliver Mundy.