Last month, while wandering through, one of the many antique malls in my home town. I stumbled upon, what I thought, was an old Victrola Phonograph player. After opening the lid, I was surprised to find, that it was an Edison Disc Phongraph, which looked, in very good conditon. Plus, it had a disc to go with it. I did not buy it staright away, even though the price was reasonable, $295.00. I had no way of getting it home. So later that night I told my dad, and he agreed that I should buy it, and he would help me bring it home. But first he wanted to make sure it worked, and so did my mother. When we retunred to the mall the next day, we asked one of the slaes staff, if it was okay to try it out. They said it was fine. Sure enough my dad crancked it up, and swithced it on( sort of, actually relased the mechinisum, to release the wound spring.) To our surprise it still played. Although, the quilty was not the best, but for an 80 year old mechanical phonograph, what do you expect. What I did not know, was that it has no needle, but a tiny diamond, for the stylus. After we got it bcak to my house, I did a little resarch. Edison, chose the diamond, over a needle, because it would last longer, and never need to be replaced. The disks, are thicker, then your standered 33's and the old 78's. Plus the groove in the disks are differnt, from those on regualr LP's. The stylus moves up and down, instead of sideways. As the daimond trvels trhough the groove, it vibrates, and sends the vibration through a hallow tube, attached to a horn, hidden in the cabinet. This is a floor standing model, btw.

It's really a cool machine. Considering that it uses, no electricity. The songs were recorded, by people either singing, or playing an instrument, into a large horn, that would transfer the sound waves, onto a spining disk. Edison, prefered his cylindircal players, to the disk ones. Unfortuneately, in the end, he lost out to RCA Victor, when the Victrola, became popular.

.... sounds neat ... are 'discs' available for it? ...
t.

Yes they are, but I had to do some hunting. So far I could only find them on ebay. Then yesterday I found 13, in an antique mall. Plus I bought about 5 off of ebay, plus the one my father gave me years ago. So I have at least 28. The disks themselves are hard to find. Of course when I found the 13 yesterday, I had to buy them all. Finding, one was cool, but finding 12 others while at the same mall, was really exciteing.

.... good for you ...
t.

I probably wouldn't play the discs much though. Given their age and the diamond stylus playing them may damage them.

But it's very cool that you managed to find one of these in working condition. That's a real collector's item.

Yeah, I don't play it a lot. Most of the discs that I have are in really good shape. Some even look almost new. I found a website on the diamond discs, and talked with the web master, and he gave me a lot of useful information. He reccomended that I should have the reporducer sreviced, and see if it needs any repair. Also suggested a book, and a place to find a manual. as well as how to maintain it.

Just got my reporducer back, from being serviced. After reinstalling it on my Diamond disc phonogrpah, and put on a disc, I was blown away by the quality and clarity of the sound. Not bad, for a 100 year old mechanical machine.