Phonoland

Hello, I'm completely new to the world of phonographs, however I recently received from my mother a machine that her grandmother gave her in the '80s and has just been in storage since. She doesn't know anything about the machine as great-grandma passed over 15 years ago now but believes she had bought the machine new. It seems to still work but I haven't had the chance to listen to it yet since Mom forgot to bring the records with it, doh. I've been trying to research it but haven't been able to find out anything about how old the machine potentially was or anything about the company. I've searched the entire thing over and the only words on it at all are "Melody Queen." Does anyone have any idea about this machine or where/when it came from or how I can go about finding out?

During the first three decades of phonograph/gramophone production, from the 1890s through the teens, three companies -- Edison, Victor (Talking Machine Co.), and Columbia -- sat on a patent pool covering the recording methods used as well as the basic design of the record playing machines. Only their products successfully made it to the sales floor. Those companies that tried to enter the market were soon put out of business through patent litigation.

This changed, starting in the early to mid teens, when many of the key patents began to expire. Within a few short years, there were over 250 branded talking machines on the market--all competing with each other, in addition to the big three companies.

The article on this page explains it -- http://www.gracyk.com/makers.shtml

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Some had very short production runs of less than a year, while others went on to become familiar brand names. Oftentimes, these were produced by cabinet makers that had nothing to do with music, that fitted their cabinets with off-shelf motors, horns, turntables, tonearms, etc. purchased from third-party suppliers.

It's safe to say, based on the components used, and the style of the cabinet, that your phonograph was produced sometime between 1919-1925. As you noted, there is virtually nothing online other than a few ads for other "Melody Queen" models. I searched Google Books and Google News Archives. Also nothing.

One resource you may want to cull through is the Talking Machine World, which was the major trade journal during the first three decades of the 20th century. Each issue can be searched for specific terms. They are available on this page:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=ta ... pe%3Atexts

Joe

Thanks so much Joe. That's all great info. That would be about the time great-grandma got married so seems reasonable they got it then, and also reasonable that they may have ended up with some less popular model as a young couple I'll definitely look into those links.

Thanks again,

Harriet