The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Among the thirty discs I picked up at a yard sale this week-end, there is this odd "Hartz Mountain Products", "Master Radio Canaries - with Organ".

EDIT: It is indeed a bird training tool... for the self-taught canary!

Who knew there were such things!

I knew. Bird call records, advertising records, instructional, language...

A while back I dropped 50 cents (because it looked unique as a label) on an acoustically recorded record that features a man detailing the ins and outs of some kind of insurance, as at a seminar. It's really dull.

I recently picked up a record, circa 1939-40, of steam locomotive and train recordings. Normally boring material for most people, but when combined with a 1939-41 era OO scale model railroad layout (meaning the equipment dates to 1939-41...) it's the period equivalent of today's digital sound systems for model railroads. Just not quite as miniaturized......maybe I can hide a portable behind some scenery! John

!

I remember buying my mother one of these for her birthday around 1960 when I was a kid. I saved up my allowance for it. Mom raised canaries so there were many in the house. The birds seemed to like it, they would sing when it was playing.