Tea Tray Horns

[JerryVan]

Hopefully, this will spark a bit of life in the Forum...

A week ago, I had the privilege of being invited to a meeting of phono folks in Canada. It was a great bunch of people! Our forum guys Dave Dazer, Darren Wallace, and our host Blaine McCutcheon(?) were there. As well as several others whose names I wish I could remember One of the guys did an excellent talk on repainting flowered horns. His example was a TTCo. horn that he had repainted. It was literally perfect! Being an artist, and having researched the painting of these horns, he understood the technique of the original artists and duplicated it to perfection. He explained that TTCo. horns had three basic flower designs. Two colors of roses, and white mums(?). One might think that the original artists had some leeway, or artistic license, in the flower designs. They did not! Each horn was painted in a specific way, with colors, styles, and placement of flowers done by a strict "formula". Even the small leaves were governed closely in size, quantity, and position. It was pointed out that knowing this, repaints can be easily spotted when they differ from the original scheme.

I've also heard mentioned, that to their recollection, nobody has really ever seen an actual tea tray manufactured by the TTCo., or at least one that was identified as such by the usual TTCo. decal, or similar. Surely, they must have made tea trays, given the name of the company. So, I mentioned this to a friend of mine, who's great grandfather actually owned the Tea Tray Company! His response was, "As I understand it, my family originally got a contract to supply Union soldiers with tinned meat. That became the Tea Tray Company afterwards, and they indeed did make inexpensive consumer trays out of tin." Has anyone here ever seen one???

All of this got me re-interested in a couple TTCo. horns in my collection. Here is one I picked up a few months ago. Happily, it seems to follow the technique and flower design as was described at the talk in Canada.

Here's another. Let's see some of yours as well!

[kiwiatlarge]

Beautiful examples of TTCo horns Jerry. Here is the only one I have. A little more worn than yours. First is alone and the second hiding between a 24B and a Hawthorne and Sheble horn.

Apparently TTCo horns made for Victor are scarcer than for cylinder machines.

Thanks for sharing,

Michael

[JerryVan]

Thanks, Michael! That beautiful horn is in good company!

[phonogfp]

Jerry,

I'm a fan of Tea Tray Company horns, and wrote an article on them several years ago for the APS magazine. I'm impressed that someone has studied the techniques and "formula" used by Tea Tray. It makes sense of why repaints can be spotted across the room, once we've seen hundreds of these horns over the years. Kudos to whoever studied this!

Here are a few Tea Tray horns I have here. The first is one for a Victor. It's mounted to a Keen Attachment, which was designed to accept Victor horns.

Here's another green one as shown earlier:

This is my favorite Tea Tray Horn. It's heavy gauge brass, nickel-plated, and decorated. I've never seen another one like it:

Finally, here's a black example with white roses; probably the most common pattern of the decorated Tea Tray horns. This is the first talking machine horn I owned; bought with a Model B Edison Standard in February 1968. It's not the greatest-looking horn, but I'm sentimentally attached to it.

Thanks for the interesting post, Jerry!

George P.

[Shawn]

How about a promotional tea tray, from the Tea Tray Company.

Shawn

[jamiegramo]

There are some beautiful horns on this thread! Thank you Jerry for starting it.

A horn with painted flowers is coming up for sale at auction in Norfolk, England. We don’t see many of these this side of the pond. I wonder is this a Tea Tray horn? There appears to be some sort of logo on the horn although this looks round and not oval.

[Steve]

That horn is paired up with an "associated" Pathéphone table model, according to the auctioneers even though it is clearly nothing of the sort!

[JerryVan]

How about a promotional tea tray, from the Tea Tray Company.

Picture 2 A.png

Shawn

Shawn, that's incredible! Thanks for sharing it!!

[JerryVan]

There are some beautiful horns on this thread! Thank you Jerry for starting it.

A horn with painted flowers is coming up for sale at auction in Norfolk, England. We don’t see many of these this side of the pond. I wonder is this a Tea Tray horn? There appears to be some sort of logo on the horn although this looks round and not oval.

Jamie,

Pretty certain that's a TTCo. horn.

[phonogfp]

I agree - definitely Tea Tray. The round decal is a dealer's marking.

George P.