Astra No. 6 s/box or EMG soundbox?

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... escription

The above link shows a soundbox sold on Ebay recently. It is an Astra No. 6 made under license from EMG and marketed by the Gramophone Exchange in London. It looks very similar to a contemporary EMG soundbox but as I've said previously, EMG never made a brass 2-spring s/box of this pattern with the finger guard (Mercedes logo) and left in plain brass, not nickel plated.

If you see this thread, Bert, this item is the very same soundbox I've been looking to show to you for some time!

Steve

Hi Steve/Bert:

In case the ad is pulled before Bert has a chance to see this, I thought I'd copy-n-save the images, and embed them here.

I'm wondering, were these Astra sound boxes sold as retrofit components for buyers to use on their own gramophones, or were they fitted to a specific (Astra brand?) gramophone? (I'm not sure what the Gramophone Exchange was.)

Good idea, Joe_DS, many thanks for doing that!

I have been asked on a few occasions about these but I have had no pictures to point to (and I do appreciate how people like to see pictures!) so having them here is a great thing.

As far as I know the Gramophone Exchange was just a retailer and produced catalogues of spares, parts, upgrades etc and possibly a mail order service (?). I'm not sure that the Astra brand has an associated machine to go with the parts. I think these are simply intended to be used as "upgrades" to existing customer machines. But why did EMG do this anyway? Surely it would have been a more profitable excercise to preserve their own brand and ID by only allowing buyers to purchase their own parts directly from EMG?

Anyway, they are a mystery, so I can understand Bert's scepticism about their existence. What we could do with now is a scan of the G. E. catalogue showing these with a description underneath and price. Any takers?

Steve

Hi Steve:

Many thanks. I've seen references to the "Gramophone Exchange, LTD." for a number of years, and wondered exactly what it was.

Out of curiosity, I googled "Gramophone Exchange" --very little online-- but after a little digging, I spotted the following reference to a patent application for an improved horn design:

We, GEoRGE HERiBEIT RUSSELL and EVELYN JANE WINIFRED SEMEn, both of The Gramophone Exchange, 29-31, New Oxford Street, London, W. C. 1, both subjects of the King of Great Britain and Ireland, do herelby declare the nature of this invention to be as follows: This invention relates to gramophones, phonographs, graphophones and the like known nunder the general name of talking machines, and has more particular reference to trumpets, horns or sound amplifving means (hereinafter referred to as horn ") such as are enclosed in the cabinet and located beneath the turntable and motor of so-called " hornless " machines.

SEE: http://v3.espacenet.com/textdoc?DB=EPOD ... 174675&F=0
(Don't know if the spelling errors, etc., are a result of sloppy scanning or what.)



As you noted, it's rather a mystery why EMG would have licensed their design for others to produce, unless, of course, they did not have the in-house resources to support expanded mass-production of their components for the retrofit market, etc., or perceived that the market for this would not have justified the investment cost needed for additional manufacturing tools.

I know that during the late 1920s, in the US, there were a number of suppliers that produced components for upgrading older Victrolas, etc.--mostly sound boxes and tone arms. I've also seen a few ads for electric pickups designed to fit on the tone arm of an acoustic record player, and connect to a radio amplifier via wires (or even using radio frequency!) Interestingly, I've never seen horn retrofit packages for older style gramophones, even though some of the smaller folded style horns could have easily been fitted into some of the larger, old-style cabinets. Surely, there would have been a market for this.

All this shows that there are still a lot of mysteries to solve.

Neat find! Thanks again for posting.

It ties in with the idea that they were purveyors of "improvements" to the extant population of gramophones rather than manufacturers of new designs. I suppose (to answer your earlier question) by the time the average man considered the gramophone as a common place household item and perhaps considered spending more money to improve an existing machine, we were effectively into the new era of electronic amplification. In other words, the window which existed between say the startup of EMG and companies like Vesper, Duophone etc and then main brands' revolution in electronics and electrical pickups, was actually quite small: 5-6 years?

Unlike today, when we expect change and improvements year on year with our technologies, back then everything moved at a snail's pace and 5 years was not a long time to adjust to one technology before the new type overtook it?

Can you imagine the majority of machine owners taking their cabinet machines to Gramophone Exchange for new horns between 1925 and 1930? I'm sure (similar to Hi-Fi buffs today) it was the pastime for the elitist few.

keep 'em coming.

Steve

IN MY OPINION THIS MODEL WAS NOT INFRINGING EMG DESIGN BECAUSE OF THE SMALL CHANGES IN THE MODEL.
I DONT THINK ASTRA PAID ANY ROYALTIES FOR IT TO EMG NOR EMGINN.EMG DID NOT IMPRINT ANY PATENT NUMBERS IN LATER SOUNDBOXES...EMG DID NOT PAY HMV FOR REPRODUCING THE EXHIBITION SOUNDBOX EITHER.
MAYBE ASTRA PRODUCED THESE AS AN AFTER MARKET ITEM WHEN EMG NO LONGER PRODUCED THEM...
WE WILL NEVER KNOW EXACTLY.... BUT I KNOW THEY ARE VERY GOOD QUALITY SOUNBOXES THAT PLAY AS GOOD AS THE REAL THING AND ARE HIGHLY COLLECTIBLE AS YOU NOTICE ON EBAY.

I SOLD MY EMG OVERSIZE BTW. GOT A FAIR PRICE FOR IT FROM A COLLECTOR THAT TOLD ME HE STARTED GETTING THE GRAMOPHONE VIRUS WHEN HE VISITED MY HOUSE SOME YEARS AGO...
SO ITS GOIN TO A GOOD HOME...I HOPE HE LL ENJOY IT AS MUCH AS I DID.

Hi Bert!

Have you sold all of your machines now then? That EMG conversion was really awesome, even if some folks question it's ability to square-up to the almighty Credenza!
I think the recent spate of high prices achieved for ANY kind of EMG, Expert (or clones of) or similar pattern soundbox has largely been down to one buyer who looks as though he wants to acquire every one out there. Not so far back in time, these same s/boxes were fetching a lot less money.

Steve