Jumped into acoustic phonographs in a big way!
 

Well, I'm not over here much, but this is one i Just had to share.

I've liked both the idea and style of acoustic phonographs since I was about 2, and have wanted each and every one I saw.

I never found a semicomplete working one in my price range. Then yesterday, after selling some things, I was at my local antique mall buying some records, and in a corner no one ever looks at (a lady that worked there for two years didn't know it existed), was a Brunswick Model T with the 3 way Ultona reproducer. It looked complete. I checked the price tag and it said $175. Cool. I might be able to swing that.

So I put a record on it, gave it 3 cranks, released the brake, and away it went. Speed was a bit warbly, but the speed control worked and the sound it made wasn't terrible. I only played about half a side to test, then let the motor wind down.

So I go home, did some research, and concluded I wanted to offer $125 for it, but didn't think I would have enough funds until Monday (I'm buying something else fun over the weekend).

I go back today to give it a closer inspection and ask how much interest there had been, and get answers I like. Then I was informed that it was 25% off. Hmmm....that's about $131, very close to what I wanted to offer. So I tell them I'm coming back for it Monday.

But it's gnawing at me. I call up a lady that's paying me for some transfers to see if I can be paid tomorrow (so I'll have money for my fun item), and she answers yes.

:banana::banana::banana:

I went back and got it for $140 with tax. Took the reproducer and platter off, and loaded it into the Roadmaster Wagon with help from someone there.

Fortunately, my neighbors are moving today, and like me. So I enlist their help in getting it up the stairs (and I helped them move a dresser).

Haven't reassembled it yet, but here are some pics. Yes, that is gaffers tape holding up the back hatch of the Roadmaster.

http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/i...c/IMG_0003.jpg
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http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/i...c/IMG_0005.jpg
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/i...c/IMG_0006.jpg
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/i...c/IMG_0007.jpg
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/i...c/IMG_0008.jpg
http://i267.photobucket.com/albums/i...c/IMG_0009.jpg

I sort of want to put different fabric on the horn cover, and I need to get some more needles.

Dah-Yum, Me Young Sonne ! Lookin' GOOD w/Yer Victrola....(grin) I THINK thorn bush needles will work in a pinch...

Your first acoustic phonograph looks like one of their top line models. I hope you get a lot of enjoyment out of it!

That's an interesting Reproducer, looks like it's Stereo!

Stereo? In a wind-up phonograph? :scratch2: I don't see how that could have been possible with acoustic phonos, since they have no amplifiers. Perhaps this one was some very special (and expensive) design, the only one of its kind. The only thing I can figure is this is a wind-up phono with a battery-operated tube amplifier (four 01As or other very early power amp tubes in push-pull, two per channel?). I went back and took another look at one of the photos of the innards; I thought I saw a speaker with a torn cone in the cabinet. Even at that, I still can't see how an acoustic pickup system (for want of a better description) could be made for stereo reproduction. The few wind-up phonographs I've seen (in photos; never seen one up close) have all been acoustic and mono.

BTW, I wonder if anyone ever tried to convert a wind-up phono to use an electric synchronous four-speed turntable and a tube-type or solid-state amplifier just to preserve the cabinet, after the spring eventually broke or something else went wrong with the original mechanism.

It's a very unusual design reproducer. It's called an Ultona, and it rotates to three positions. As you see it there, it's meant for playing lateral cut records, rotated to the right with a (missing) sapphire stylus it can play vertically cut Pathes and such properly, and rotated to the left, it becomes horizantal and plays Edison Diamond Discs.

Get a bottle of Howard's Finish Restorer, a shit-potful of Rags, & spend a couple hours makin' it look NEW...(grin)

At some point I saw a vintage ad for such a thing(where and when escapes me).
It was totally possible in the mechanical era as both lateral and vertical cut records were in production at the time....some of the early stereo LP formats used one method for one channel and the other method for the other channel so it is not a radical leap to have done it that way in the mechanical era.

I can't begin to fathom why you would think than an electrical amp would be necessary back then...A skillfully engineered acoustic pickup piped to two suitably separated exponential horns(which are acoustic amplifiers) would perform just as well as any acoustic phonograph that was popular at the time.


Some Howard restor-a-finish lightly scrubbed on(go harder in bad spots) with 0000 steel wool then wiped off with paper towels a few minutes later should work wonders.

Such a thing as an acoustic stereo?? Until some stereo 78s turn up I think it's safe to say that you saw something rather more ordinary (where and whenever).

I assume Eric was kidding; vinyldavid's post is definitive.

I was just kidding!

That's the famous Brunswick Ultona head.
One way, Latteral.
Scond position turn of head. Pathe vert. cut. using special Ball saphire needle.
Third turn of head. Play your vertically recorded Edison Diamond Disc records.
Careful there. The needles are not an exact match. May dammage records.

On the stereo acoustic.
Columbia actually made one very rare machine in about 1900 .
It was a cylinder graphophone.
Had 3 reproducers, three horns, and, large cylinder had three traks.
Instruments were on two side horns, and, voices on center track.
Last I knew Alan Koeningsberg had the only known existing part, the reproducer trunion. It was purchased from the shaw of I ran some years ago by Alan.
No records, no machine.
If I remember correctly, when new, the machine cost was 1,000.00 dollars.
Records supposedly 500.00 apiece.
Obviously a rich man's toy.
Never sold manny.

But, it was actually a three track stereo.
Bill Cahill

I think they called it the graphophone triplex.
Bill Cahill

I am 56 years old and know next to nothing about hand-cranked phonographs, except what I have seen (in photographs) and read about them. By the time I was born, in July 1956, electric phonographs, with synchronous motors and four speeds, had become mainstream in the US and had probably made most hand-cranked phonographs obsolete.

I was asking about the feasibility of converting a hand-cranked phono to modern technology (electric phono motor, AC-operated amplifiers for stereo) because there may be collectors or people who may have an old console or portable crank phonograph with a broken main turntable drive spring, or other problems that forced them to retire the unit. This would permit the current owner (son, grandson, etc. of the original owner) to preserve the cabinet (many console wind-up phonos had finely-crafted real wood cabinets the likes of which we will never see again, unfortunately :no:), while at the same time updating the technology to today's standards. The modified unit would probably draw more than a few puzzled looks, however, when an AC power cord was seen coming out of the cabinet.

I learned something today from the poster who mentioned an acoustic method of producing stereo sound from a mechanical reproducer, as found in wind-up phonographs. I had no idea until now that stereo sound was possible from disc records made in the early 1900s. The few stereo crank phonos available at the time must have been very well-made, in beautifully-crafted real wood cabinets, and must have cost a small fortune (in that era's dollars).

Records for $500 in 1900?? Adjusted for inflation that's well over $10,000 for one record. NOT buying it (the story or the record). In fact, Googling "stereo graphophone" or "Columbia Triplex" or any combination of those terms returns zilch relevant results.

Source your info.

DOES make ya wonder, IF they had some sort of stereo effect back in the grammophone days, logically, it would have carried over into the early electronic era, & we would have had stereo a LOT sooner than 1958...

I know, but, the machines, and, records they played were very expensive. The records alone were 500.00 apiece. They didn't know what they really had.
Bill Cahill

Source.

Your.

Info.

Unless and until you can point to some documentation somewhere of phonograph records selling for what was then an average worker's yearly wage, I cannot even begin to take this seriously. I'd like to see proof that such a machine existed because so far I haven't found any.

I cannot believe that, in the early 1900s, records designed to be played on a cranked phono would be priced anywhere near $500 each. That figure sounds, to me, a lot more like the cost of a good console wind-up phono of the period. There are photos of such a unit in this thread; it looks almost like a 1950s-'60s Magnavox or other make console radio-phonograph. A dead giveaway that it's just a record player, of course, is the crank on the side of the cabinet.

Search google for the shahs multiplex grande. The shaw bought 150 records for it at a cost of $1800. There were apparently two made. One was at the 1904 St. Louis worlds fair. There was indeed three tracks on the cylinder.

'Never, in the history of present making, has so original and elaborate a gift been made by a subject to his sovereign as the one recently ordered in Washington from the Columbia Phonograph Co., by the Persian minister, for presentation to the Shah of Persia. 'This magnificent gift, which was shipped March 21st [1901] from the factory of the American Graphophone Co., Bridgeport, Conn., consists of a multiplex Graphophone Grand and thirty-four barrels of records and blank cylinders.
'The machine was built on the model of the one exhibited at the Paris Exposition last summer, and which attracted the attention and won the admiration of visitors from all parts of the world. It is the most wonderful sound reproducing mechanism ever constructed and it contains new features in addition to those embodied in the famous Graphophone Grand. It uses three separate horns, acting in absolute unison with three separate and distinct records, each one of which gives the same loud, pure tone as that of the Graphophone Grand. The combination of all three in unison, gives an intensity of volume and a sweetness and richness of tone which seem almost beyond belief and results are obtained that is difficult to realize are within the possibilities of round reproducing mechanism.
'One of the interesting features of this precious shipment is that it will complete the last stage of its journey - from Batum to Teheren - on the backs of camels, and it goes without saying that no present that has ever been received at the palace of the Shah created even a small fraction of the interest that will be awakened when this phenomenal instrument, from far away Connecticut, makes it appearance and lifts up its wondrous voices.'
(The Ford Wayne Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Tuesday, 26 March 1901, p. 4c)


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I am duly impressed by your research Bill R, thank you. So in reality the records came to $12 each, not bad at all considering they were specialty one-offs. Expressed in 2012 dollars that's about $328 for each custom record pressing of a live recording session, quite a bargain! I'm sure the Shah could well afford it. I wonder if the machine survives somewhere.

Again, thanks for doing the research.

I am amazed the machine ever made it to its destination in the first place. It had to be carried in on camels and mules. The machine and 30 barrels of records over the desert by camel is impressive in its own right.