The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Has anyone got one of these?. A recent purchase of mine and I will post pictures as soon as it arrives.
Any information on it would be greatly appreciated.

I'm quoting from the George Frow book:

"Only a few of these have been reported; from England (No. SM 931) Australia, New Zealand and Norway, possibly survivors from an order of February 1917 in quartered oak and wax finish at $33.00 for export. It is not explained how these were shipped, contrary to war restrictions in force at that time.
A special cabinet was prepared, similar in looks to the Amberola 30, but about twice as large, with the A-100 mechanism and horn installed. Particulars of other quantities are not known, but this model appeared briefly in machine catalogs.
Though the cabinet is distinctly Amberola-like, it has no size relationship to any of that series."

It's a table-top oak machine, with single spring and nickle-plated parts.

Looks like you might have a rather rare machine!

Bob

chunnybh wrote:Has anyone got one of these?. A recent purchase of mine and I will post pictures as soon as it arrives.
Any information on it would be greatly appreciated.

Where are you located? What is the S/N of your A-85? Yes indeed, they are very rare machines. I have an Edison A-85 SM 1964. I bought it back in 1998, rescued from a barn in Washington state. A fellow collector in my area bought his from the CAPS show 2 years ago. The S/N on his is 1080. My machine is published in the last compendium book. George, if you can post that page, it will be greatly appreciated. I wrote a letter to George From and he gave me good information of it. I will bring the letter to the OTAPS meeting(Oct 1, 2011) and have one of the computer experts scan and post it to the forum. If anyone else has any knowledge let me know. I'd like to start a data base of these rare machines. Harvey Kravitz

Phonofreak wrote: My machine is published in the last compendium book. George, if you can post that page, it will be greatly appreciated. Harvey Kravitz

Harvey,

I don't find an A-85 in the Compendium, nor in the indexes of the others. If you can give me a book title and page number, I'll be happy to post a scan.

George P.

George,
It's in the very last book that you and Tim published. I can't remember the page. The book is put away.
Harvey Kravitz

I bought this in England from a dealer who sent me this picture from George Frow's book.

I'll post pictures and the serial number as soon as it arrives.

Phonofreak wrote: My machine is published in the last compendium book. George, if you can post that page, it will be greatly appreciated. Harvey Kravitz

Found it! The final title was A World of Antique Phonographs. Looks like I had a senior moment yesterday when I was looking for this... Anyway, here it is.

George P.

I was wondering why I could not find it in the 2nd edition of "The Talking Machine".
Thank you Mr Paul and congratulation on "A world of Antique Phonographs", a gorgeous book.
Harvey, I noticed that your machine does not have a cloth grill behind the horn grill. Mine neither, but I was told it did originally have an "orange-ish" cloth.

My machine has an interesting history. I bought it back in 1998. It was sitting in this guy's barn since 1947. When I bought it, it was filthy. It was covered with mouse and bird poop. Surprisingly, everything was in tact.The grille cloth is long gone. However, I could see trace of glue in the back of the grille. I never knew what was the color of the grille cloth. I hope to find the right color and texture.
Harvey Kravitz

Hello,
I eventually got around to cleaning and taking pictures of my A-85.
It is indeed the one mentioned in the Frow book. SM 931
Inside the case I found this "adaptor" arm and a reproducer mounting block. Oddly there are no screw holes for mounting the block.