Edison Perfected Phonograph, with Batteryfrom Edison NHS | listening to the graphophonefrom Edison NHS | Empire-style gramophoneabout 1900 |
| The Perfected Phonograph (above) of October 1888 with an electric motor that used solid white wax cylinders 4 inches by 2-1/5 inches, at speeds of 120 to 195 rpm, for a duration of about 2 minutes. ————— (below)Edison Standard phonograph after 1896 allowed the machine to be cranked briefly to start, then could be left unattended while the spring motor rotated the cylinder for 2 minutes | In the 1890’s, Columbia discontinued the cardboard graphophone cylinder and adopted the Edison sold wax cylinder. These were shorter and wider than the graphophone cylinders, and made of solid wax, but they could be played on a graphophone (above) equipped with a nickel-plated mandrel and modified to play the Edison cylinders of 100 grooves per inch. ————— (below) Columbia Eagle graphophone sold for just $10 | Berliner published in 1894 his first list of gramophone discs for sale, at 60 cents each, 6 and 7/8-inch diameter (after 1895 are 7-inch), duration 2 minutes, made of celluloid (after 1895 of hard rubber, after 1897 of shellac), one-sided, no paper labels. The hand-operated gramophone of 1895 cost $12 and played 7-inch discs that cost 50 cents. Discs rotated at about 70 rpm on average. ————— (below) Peter Bacigalupi’s Kinetoscope, Phonograph, and Gramophone Arcade in San Francisco, 1895, showed the great popularity of coin-slot phonographs. |
Edison Standard phonograph 1908from Edison NHS | Columbia Eagle graphophonefrom 1898 Pathe catalog | Peter Bacigalupi’s Arcade 1895from Edison NHS |