The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I received my new rooster today and spent some time cleaning off 100 years of crud and black stuff - it was horribly filthy.

Underneath it all, it is actually in relatively good condition (much better than the first one I restored) and has most of its original paint. What looked like an over paint was totally grime, so it should be a relatively easy restoration. It has a chipped upper beak and a hole in each leg, but otherwise mostly just some chipped off paint. The interesting thing is that it has an original paper label on the bottom with an address on Greenwich Ave. in New York.

I'll take some pics as I proceed and post my progress. The pics below are after cleaning and a close up of the label. If anyone knows anything about this "dealer" or whoever, please let me know.

The strange looking lines on the bottom near the label is actually horse hair that was mixed with the plaster for strength. This rooster also solved a problem regarding original paint schemes... the reddish orange color on this is original and the full color scheme on my other one is original, also, which indicates that either one is correct.

Nice find.
I could not find any information on the tag, other than the current building was built in 1940.

Thanks for the info. I found that the family lived at this address in 1916, so the current building obviously replaced something older...

From info gathered from the 1916 New York City Directory, Louis Biagotti is listed at 45 Greenwich Ave., along with Odostone Mfg. Co. makers of "Plaster Novelties". His brother is also listed as a "plasterer". The word odostone apparently refers to ground sea shells/oyster shells, which was probably used to make plaster and would have been an abundant, free source of material.

So, I believe that I have stumbled upon the mysterious manufacturer of these Pathé store displays...

That's obscure ... for sure!

James.

newbie questoin: so Pathé wasnt an import thing it was a US based thing as well, or a US office for a mainly overseas company? I was always confued on this.

Pathé was a French company who started off manufacturing cylinder phonographs and records, and later when they had changed over to make disc Pathephones and disc records, they expanded into USA.
I don't know the ins and outs of it, but the USA side of the business must have been run independently in a similar way to Victor and HMV because machines made in France were completely different to the US machines, as were the record labels and change over and overlap of vertical and lateral recording.

I don't know if Pathé used plaster rooster store displays in Europe, but they probably decided to use them in the U.S. to compete with Victor's store display logo - Nipper...

Based on the information for Louis Biagotti and Odostone Mfg. Co., I decided to Make an ad for Odostone from a modified period ad...