Phonoland

Hi,
does anyone have any information about Musicmaster, horn makers. Edison seems to have fitted them as standard on top of the range cylinder machines & their radio horns seem to be quite common in the U.S. Were they an american company? Were the smooth type of wooden horn supplied by Victor/HMV made by musicmaster & 'badged' as there own? How long were wooden gramophone horns available?
Roger

"Music Master" horns were made by Sheip & Vandregrift of Philadelphia, PA. beginning in 1908. They were noted cabinet & furniture makers of the area. I have two of their horns, one in mahogany which is on an Opera and one in oak which is part of a cygnet horn setup on a Home Mod. B.
Both horns have the "Music Master" decal as well as an Edison "Cygnet Horn" decal, so I doubt that they made the horns for Victor as thier decal wasn't found on Victor horns.

Bill

No, MM didn't make Victor/HMV horns. The latter tend to be quite a bit thinner than the MM wooden equivalents, which to some collectors, are the ultimate of this type. It is therefore not strictly "correct" to find a MM horn on a Victor/HMV machine, though I have seen them turn up this way presumably due to recent traders not knowing any better and placing the MM horn on a machine because it looks "just like that one we saw on Ebay"

I'm not 100% sure about Victor but HMV wooden horns first appeared around 1908 and were available well into the 1920's.

Steve