I got a new toy
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Literally, a toy.
I saw one of these for the first time last month and thought they were really cool. They were made by The National Toy Company of Boston, MA from 1910 to 1925. There were different characters made.
Link to video -
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@pique said in I got a new toy:
So jealous you have a Victrola! That is a very cool toy!
Four phonographs now...
The cabinet with internal horn that appears in the video:
A Victor Victrola with an external horn. I love this one, and it's incredibly loud, I usually stuff a towel down the horn to dampen the sound:
An Edison cylinder phonograph:
And the latest find, a Standard Talking Machine from the Columbia Graphophone Company with a "Morning Glory" horn. It needs a repair, I've discovered that at some point in the past a bad repair was made to the speed regulator which now causes it to slow down when the needle is lowered to the record. Won't be too difficult to fix. These "talking machines" were part of a sales scheme where one would get the phonograph for free. The hitch being that you had to buy the Standard Talking Machine records (which apparently weren't the best quality). The company ensured you could only play their records on this machine by making the spindle much larger than the standard 78 rpm record. It's 9/16" in diameter. (Someone on eBay sells an adapter platter to allow these players to play standard 78 rpm's.)
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Oh for the days when we loved such simple amusements!
When I lived in San Francisco decades ago I visited the home of a guy who had several restored player pianos. It was so satisfying just to sit there and be entertained, as if by magic!
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omg, i so love the tabletop ones! I have a huge collection of 78s that need a victrola! And do you have the wax cylinders?
@pique I have 8 cylinders. They aren't easy to come across (although I know a man in St Johnsbury, VT with some for sale). A lot of them succumb to mold if stored in damp basements, etc. The mold destroys them.
They're so cool. They sound as old fashioned as they look.
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I had a victrola as a boy. It used bamboo needles and there was a tool to cut a new tip on the needle as it wore. It was in a cabinet that stood on the floor with the horn below the turntable and space for records below that. I had only a few records to play on it so it wasn't used much. Eventually, I gutted the cabinet and used it to house the Heathkit stereo system (turntable, amplifier, and FM tuner) that I built. I wonder iff my ex-wife still has it.
I had a cousin who had one in his basement along with a much larger collection of 78s. We used to listen to it when I visited him. I still remember playing the Poet and Peasant Overture by Franz von Suppé many times.
Big Al
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Somewhere in the metaverse there is a recording of Johannes Brahms on an old wax cylinder. He is addressing Thomas Edison directly. Edison sent someone to Vienna to record the composer speaking. The recording is really spooky, literally a voice from the other side: "Mr Edison! It's Brahms! Johannes Brahms!" he yells. Then he plays one of his compositions. Which, despite the drawbacks of the primitive recording, really captures his spirit and energy. If you google I'm sure you'll find it.
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Somewhere in the metaverse there is a recording of Johannes Brahms on an old wax cylinder. He is addressing Thomas Edison directly. Edison sent someone to Vienna to record the composer speaking. The recording is really spooky, literally a voice from the other side: "Mr Edison! It's Brahms! Johannes Brahms!" he yells. Then he plays one of his compositions. Which, despite the drawbacks of the primitive recording, really captures his spirit and energy. If you google I'm sure you'll find it.
@pique There is a man in the neighboring town who has an extensive collection of phonographs and cylinders. I'd wager he probably has that recording. My neighbor mentioned him to me and it sounds like he might know him; I'm trying to arrange a meeting.
The first half of this video is all about his collection (the second half is about a cookie cutter collection)...
https://www.wmur.com/article/nh-chronicle-quirky-collections-phonograph-cylinders-and-cookie-cutters/43400586 -
@pique There is a man in the neighboring town who has an extensive collection of phonographs and cylinders. I'd wager he probably has that recording. My neighbor mentioned him to me and it sounds like he might know him; I'm trying to arrange a meeting.
The first half of this video is all about his collection (the second half is about a cookie cutter collection)...
https://www.wmur.com/article/nh-chronicle-quirky-collections-phonograph-cylinders-and-cookie-cutters/43400586 -
There was an NPR broadcast a few years ago about a cache of old cylinders of off-color humor that were supposed to have been destroyed under the Comstock Act, but somehow survived intact. I’d love to hear them but the culture was so different back then that they might vary from cringey to hard to comprehend.
