Hi George and thanks for taking the time to reply. I realize that there isn't much information documented, and this is what I'm running up against as much as anything else. Neither of my two machines have paper notices on the cabinet bottoms, but the later one has a data plate with the newest patent date of Mar-11-13, wihle the earlier machine has the newest patent date of 8-26-11. The 6 in 26 is hard to make out, and might be a 3, 8 or 9. Do you have a sense of how soon the patent dates on these model / serial number plates were updated, once a new patent was issued? Peter Fraser has graciously offered to post photos of the early levers, so I've prepared some composited images of the differing details of both of my A-250's. My hope is that some of the Edison enthusiasts out there are familiar with this start / stop lever arrangement. If someone else has a machine with these odd levers, I'd love to know the serial number, so I can get a sense of how late into the production it was used. What piqued my curiosity to begin with was that I had never seen these levers before. I don't know if that's because I haven't gotten around to the shows and big collections, or because they are relatively little known, even by other collectors. I bought my first D.D. machine in 1976, and have had many over the years, but this is the first I've seen with this odd detail. Best, Andy On Jun 22, 2007, at 7:55 AM, gpaul2000 at aol.com wrote: > > Andy, > Unfortunately, without some factory documentation of each model's > serial numbers within a given month, exact dating for A-series > Edison Disc Phonographs is quite difficult.? I've seen two types of > paper license notices glued to the bottoms of these cabinets.? The > earlier has no date at the bottom, and the later one has an April > 1914 date.? Keep in mind that very few Edison Disc Phonographs were > available to the public until Aug/Sept 1913, and the fire of Dec. > 1914 put an end to most A-series production.? That gives roughly a > 15-month window for most of our A-series machines.? Given the two > different license notices, I break down the A-series dating to > "late 1913/early 1914" and "mid/late 1914."? That's about as > precise as I can get, given the limited information available. > > I'd be interested in seeing a photo of your start/stop mechanism.? > It sounds like one I had many years ago, and I'm pretty sure that > it's the earliest version.? On page 39 of Frow's "Edison Disc > Phonographs...", an "A-150" is shown with what appears to be the > conventional start/stop device, and this photo is dated March 2, > 1914.? Presuming that all models adopted this newer design at the > same time, and your "A-250" carries a pre-April 1914 license > notice, I'd date it as "late 1913/early 1914."? Hope this helps, > > George Paul > > > > > > > > ______________________________________________________________________ > __ > AOL now offers free email to everyone. Find out more about what's > free from AOL at AOL.com. > _______________________________________________ > Phono-L mailing list > http://phono-l.oldcrank.org