The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I have a couple first style Maroon Gems with the "GEM" logo on the front instead of the more commonly seen "Edison" script logo. I was wondering how many more of this style were out there? The two that I have, have serial numbers that are ten digits apart. I wonder at what serial number the maroon Gems began. Any thoughts?

Interesting! I haven't seen that before.

George P.

I'm amazed George you haven't seen one of these in your travels. I figured you would have detailed information on this one. Still a mystery.

Paul,

Super cool!

It almost looks like Edison took a black Gem C casting, masked off areas and painted them the maroon gem color. Note that there is black between and around all the stenciling, GEM and the Edison Signature.

We know Edison took black Gem single piece horns and painted over them the maroon gem color for the maroon Gem, I have one of them.

Shawn

The decals have a black background as part of the decal.
I have a later red Gem with the typical Edison script, and all the pin-striping on mine has a black background as well.

Interesting! Thanks for surfacing this!!

Shawn

This is very interesting! I have 6 D Maroon GEM's and 1 E. I like variations, and have 4 different types of Data Plates for the D. I will have to look at them to see if I have one that just says GEM on the front! I had a Edison Concert Blank box for years--and never noticed it among my other boxes. Guess I just wasn't looking!

Mike Sorter
Riverside, CA

Here is the horn I got with one of the two. It's a one-piece horn and no evidence that it was ever painted black

Hi Paul-- and others.
Below are pictures of my one-piece red Fireside horn-- As I understand it, these were black horns that were repainted at the factory. Mine is in super nice condition-- but there are two small scratches on the cone that show black underneath. Apparently the black paint provided a better base for the application of the red paint, than just a polished metal as used on the later two-piece horns. As a result, the few (very few) one piece horns I've seen all seem to have above average red paint remaining. This is the 2nd one I've had. My first also had excellent paint.

Brad Abell

I've inspected my horn very carefully and don't find that it had ever had a black undercoat of paint. Probably why the condition of mine is not all that great. They no doubt painted over black horns initially and then started painting the horns red over the tinplate.