The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hi All

First post on here, although I have spent much time learning from the wisdom on this forum so thank you. I live in the UK and have a passion for vintage music, my current small collection of gramophones consists of an HMV 102, Columbia 102, Decca 50DS and an HMV 103.

Anyway, I stumbled across a small lot of reproducers at a local auction house and bought it, it consists of an HMV 5B and an Edison Bell Electrotone Grand. It was the Edison Bell that caught my eye as it looked virtually mint and unused and came complete in its blue velvet lined presentation box. Closer examination seems to suggest that its unused or has been used extremely lightly. I have spent a while trying to research it but found very little and wanted to ask if anybody here know about these, are they good or poor performers and a worthy upgrade to say a 5A on an HMV 102? I haven't tried it yet on my players but it looks to have a standard pin bayonet fitting but I am not sure if it will work, I need to give it a try sometime.

This is not my actual one but is identical (I think mine is in better condition!)

Welcome to the Forum. Although it is based in the USA, we UK and European collectors are well catered for.

It is some years since I had any Edison Bell portables in my collection, but both had the Electrotone soundbox which gave good results. The weak point of these machines is the complex pot metal tonearm which is vulnerable to breakage in old age.
The soundbox was also available in gold plated finish on their top of the range models, such as the EB345 I once owned, pictured below. It had a 12 inch turntable, and with the record album removed it would play with the lid shut.
I also attach a period advertisement, unfortunately a poor scan from an old magazine.
You will see that the early Electrotones had the bell symbol on the front mask embossed. On later versions it was a cutout.

Thanks for the response and the warm welcome!

Thats helpful info, it just looks like such a nicely made reproducer I was hoping to use it as a replacement for one of my other ones that have seen better days. I guess the best way will be to try it out which I will do when I get back to my machines.