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With a 5a soundbox! What a plus! Did it carry an exhibition originally? or a no2?
BTW... did we ever know what was the phantom no3 soundbox?

Inigo wrote: Thu Sep 02, 2021 6:47 am With a 5a soundbox! What a plus! Did it carry an exhibition originally? or a no2?
BTW... did we ever know what was the phantom no3 soundbox?

Yes, I think it originally came with an Exhibition soundbox.

My HMV 100 certainly did. I was very pleased about that.

Inigo wrote: Thu Sep 02, 2021 6:47 am With a 5a soundbox! What a plus! Did it carry an exhibition originally? or a no2?
BTW... did we ever know what was the phantom no3 soundbox?

According to HMG, what became the No.4 soundbox was a Victor design of 1914 which was not put into production until 1925, by which time Victor were developing the Orthophonic soundbox.
When HMV adopted the design they intended to call it the No.3, but for reasons now lost in time it was named the No.4.

Thanks!TThere's a mistery herein...

The No.3 was in effect the Lumiere diaphragm and that's a reason I've heard suggested for the skip to No. 4.

Curious, being a very different thing. And later the jump into numbers 21, 23... It seems to show the Columbia serial numbers, which were much more advanced, the second viva tonal is number 15; what happened to the numbers between 9 (early viva tonal) and 15?

Inigo wrote: Fri Sep 03, 2021 8:17 am Curious, being a very different thing. And later the jump into numbers 21, 23... It seems to show the Columbia serial numbers, which were much more advanced, the second viva tonal is number 15; what happened to the numbers between 9 (early viva tonal) and 15?

The Lumiere is not really very different to a conventional soundbox, only the diaphragm material and dimensions make it stand apart.

I'm more intrigued by the quantum leap from 5/5A to No. 16. What was going on there?

Maybe these missing numbers are experimental prototypes that didn't see the light, until a successful no16 was sent to the production chain...