Frank Capps, an Edison employee, patented a spring motor in 1895, the rights to which were assigned to the United State Phonograph Company (Edison). This Triton motor, which owed much to Amet, was a watershed development in the history of the phonograph, for at last a phonograph could be placed in every home and business.
The Capps motor was fitted in a machine simply called the Spring Motor (Class SM), usually marked with a nickel plate announcing 'Spring Motor for Phonograph'. It probably first went on sale in 1896 at a cost of $100. (Early Spring Motors are marked United States.) The Edison Spring Motor continued until 1901, when the case was redesigned and the machine morphed into the Edison Triumph.
Lynn Bilton
Box 435
Randolph,OH 44265
330 325-7866
We buy, sell, and repair antique phonographs and music boxes.
Pick-up and delivery possible in many parts of the midwest, south, and northeast.
Mechanical music
for sale