Emile Berliner of Philadelphia experimented with the manufacture of flat disc records and disc talking machines in the early 1890s. Berliner had a background in telephony, and was to hold several important early telephone and microphone patents.
This string wind Berliner, first offered for sale in 1894, was the ancestor of all disc talking machines. It was difficult to regulate the speed with this hand crank arrangement, and the problem of a reliable spring motor was not solved until Berliner's association with Eldridge Johnson, culminating in the Improved Gramophone of 1898.Vicki Young
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