The title of the Victor record at 3:34 is Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes. It was a temperance song from the late 1800's. I used to have a different version. Emile Berliner patented the flat record in 1887, but didn't start making them til 1898, cos that was before Kickstarter. His partner was machinist Eldridge Johnson, who started the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1901. Years ago, I read that he bought Berliner's patents...complicated legal stuff. Edison introduced flat records in 1912. They sound quiter than a normal 78 cos they have up-and-down grooves like cylinders, instead of lateral grooves like other records. I once played a stack of Edison records on an Edison phonograph, at an antique store on the North Side in 1975, and they played at a normal volume. (I recorded them, and still have the tape.) No one seems to know why they're three times as thick as a normal record. The reason Edison made flat records and players that were incompatible with the rest of the industry was, he thought he'd sell more records that way, cos people who bought Edison phonographs would have to buy Edison records! What they did instead was, buy normal records for normal gramophones, which they'd already been doing since Victor set up shop. Edison actually was the third-biggest record company from the late teens through the 20's, behind Victor and Columbia, but the industry-wide adoption of electric recording in 1925 left them behind, and they quit the record business in 1929.
Thanks that good history of early records. This little record player just opened up a whole new world of collecting for me now on the Hunt for late 1890's & early 1900's records ... Cheers !,,!
The title of the Victor record at 3:34 is Drink To Me Only With Thine Eyes. It was a temperance song from the late 1800's. I used to have a different version.
Emile Berliner patented the flat record in 1887, but didn't start making them til 1898, cos that was before Kickstarter. His partner was machinist Eldridge Johnson, who started the Victor Talking Machine Company in 1901. Years ago, I read that he bought Berliner's patents...complicated legal stuff.
Edison introduced flat records in 1912. They sound quiter than a normal 78 cos they have up-and-down grooves like cylinders, instead of lateral grooves like other records. I once played a stack of Edison records on an Edison phonograph, at an antique store on the North Side in 1975, and they played at a normal volume. (I recorded them, and still have the tape.) No one seems to know why they're three times as thick as a normal record.
The reason Edison made flat records and players that were incompatible with the rest of the industry was, he thought he'd sell more records that way, cos people who bought Edison phonographs would have to buy Edison records! What they did instead was, buy normal records for normal gramophones, which they'd already been doing since Victor set up shop. Edison actually was the third-biggest record company from the late teens through the 20's, behind Victor and Columbia, but the industry-wide adoption of electric recording in 1925 left them behind, and they quit the record business in 1929.
Thanks that good history of early records. This little record player just opened up a whole new world of collecting for me now on the Hunt for late 1890's & early 1900's records ... Cheers !,,!