[Phono-L] Ever seen this Polyphon phonograph?

Robert Plavzic plavzic at gmail.com
Mon Jul 9 11:12:25 PDT 2007


Hi John

I think yours is from the "Arena" series of polyphon tabletops

The large music box companies saw the writing on the wall fairly early.
Polyphon, Symphonion, Kalliope, Lochmann all made an attempt to get into the
disk phonograph industry.

Polyphons' first phonograph disks are interesting (and unbelievably rare -
I've seen more 5" berliners than the coated metal polyphon disks!!) insofar
as polyphon took what they knew about = metal disks, and put recording on a
layer of celluloid on the one side, and a decoration, the polyphon lady, on
the other. They also made a range of machines. Here the 1912 polyphon
catalog *as an example *
http://www.romfi.com/category.cfm?Category=2%21A%5D%23X%3C8DPWL%2FRL4%2A%3D%5FT%2C%5FANC%0A&CFID=43787&CFTOKEN=65440570
)

Symphonion was very innovative with disk phonograph machines, and made some
very beautiful horn phonographs, as well as the desirable "Nickel King"
phonograph.

Kalliope was a late entry and mainly made suitcase machines, and kalliope
records in the 20's.

Lochmann, one of the smaller companies, brought out a machine where the horn
revolved around the turntable, throwing the sound all around the room -
obviously very scientific for its time!!!! Also available as coin-op,
probably to make bar patrons extremely dizzy!

here a pic of one that seems to be missing its horn, but one can see where
the elbow attaches and the horn support at the far end.
http://www.romfi.com/category.cfm?search_yes='yes'&category=%3B%21A%5D%23X%3C8DPWX%2CRL0%2A%3A%5E4%28%5E1RBK%20%2AS%2B%5C%5C5J%5C%27%2B%0A


regards

Rob


On 7/9/07, john robles <john9ten at pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> I picked this up from a 60-something year old lady in Woodland Hills, CA
> who said it was her mother's. Any info is greatly appreciated.
> I know that Polyphon made music boxes in the 1880s-early 1900s, and I know
> they made records with the same label as on the phonograph lid. Did they
> make the records to sell the machines, or the machines to sell the records??
> Follow the link...
> John Robles
>
> http://s197.photobucket.com/albums/aa39/john9ten/Polyphon%20Musik%20phonograph/
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> Phono-L mailing list
> http://phono-l.oldcrank.org
>


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