Collectors today refer to United, Standard Disc, Harmony Disc, Aretino, and Busy Bee products as "scheme" machines. They were distributed by a number of affiliated Chicago-based companies with basically the same Boards of Directors through mail-order. The ads typically stated "Buy one dozen records at .50 apiece and receive the machine for free". The catch was, when the machine arrived, was that the spindles would not accomodate ordinary 78rpm records, so theoretically the buyer was locked into buying more of that particular spindle-hole sized record. Busy Bee products had an extra lug on disc machines, while their cylinders were slightly larger than the norm. The discs were typically cut-outs from Columbia with pasted-over proprietary labels, hence the ability to sell them at a discount. >From: "Dave hillebrandt" <dave at w4ci.com> >Reply-To: Antique Phonograph List <phono-l at oldcrank.org> >To: <phono-l at oldcrank.org> >Subject: [Phono-L] info on united Talking Machine "Symphony" >Date: Fri, 6 Apr 2007 16:51:51 -0400 > >Hi All, Was wondering if anyone on the list can steer me to where i can >learn a little more about my united Symphony disk player. Picked one up a >few months ago and have about 50 records with it but after using Google to >search, can find very little on the internet about the company who made the >player or about the records themselves. it works pretty well and though the >sound is not as good as some Victors that i've had, figure it might be >partly because of the quality of the recordings; not bad at all though. i >do know it was made sometime in the teens and gather they weren't totally a >flash in the pan because i know they had a few well known artists that >performed for the lable such as uncle josh of who i have a couple united >Records of. Thought the "big hole" records were neat and couldn't pass it >up. Am totally blind and so harder to find specialized antique books in >braille or on tape but even when having sighted friends look around for me, >have had very little luck locating much info at all. Any suggestions or >info you can e-mail me please let me know. i gather that the Standard and >united Phonograph companies were the ones to use large hole records but >perhaps the size of the whole is different. Thanks for anything. Happy >Easter and Pass Over. Sincerely, Dave >_______________________________________________ >Phono-L mailing list >http://phono-l.oldcrank.org