Identifying this phono...

Greetings all -

Could you guys help me shed some light on this unit? Most "Standard Model A" searches bring me to Edison Cylinder sites. I think I was able to find that this plays normal 78's but this unit's "standard" records have a larger spindle hole? ...any info would be appreciated? Date on this unit?

Phonophan79 wrote:Greetings all -

Could you guys help me shed some light on this unit? Most "Standard Model A" searches bring me to Edison Cylinder sites. I think I was able to find that this plays normal 78's but this unit's "standard" records have a larger spindle hole? ...any info would be appreciated? Date on this unit?

I can tell you that Standard manufactured records (pressed by Columbia) from 1903 to 1916 similar to Harmony records of the same period with an enlarged spindle hole. I don't know more than that.

If you go to http://www.google.com and do a search for "Standard Talking Machine" or "Standard Talking Machine Co" (use quotation marks), you'll come up with a number of references to the manufacturer, and fact that these machines were produced by Columbia. There's also a Wikipedia page with a short article about the record label -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_T ... ne_Company

Standard Talking Machines, as noted, were originally fitted with a turntable incorporating a large spindle, as illustrated on this page -- http://www.oldcrank.com/collection/stan ... ard_a.html -- so that only Standard Talking Machine records could be played. To get around this, many collectors, today, simply replace the original turntable--which contained the spindle--with a conventional Columbia turntable/spindle. I'd guess that this was done to your machine at some point.

This was a common ploy in the years after the original patents expired. After you bought the budget player (often sold for as little as a dollar), you found out that you couldn't play any records except the ones that company made.

I machined a special slip-on spindle for two records I have with half-inch holes.