Re: [ARSCLIST] Stereo records.

[steven c <stevenc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steven Smolian" <smolians@xxxxxxxxx>
> The issue is quite complex.  I have an Edison cylinder cartalog from 1891.
> Read, read, read.
> Get hold of "From Tinfoil to Stereo" in any edition except that revised by
> Leah Burt (she chopped out much important data._
> Steven Smolian
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Michael Shoshani" <mshoshani@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Friday, June 16, 2006 10:25 AM
> Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Stereo records.
> > On Thursday 15 June 2006 18.49, Lou Judson wrote:
> >
> >> Without the confidence of its dealers in 1923, RCA Victor, founder of
> >> the phonograph and record business, could never have started radio down
> >> its billion-dollar road.
> >
> > Oh. My. Gosh.  History should not be written by ignorant corporate PR
> > hacks! :)
> >
> > 1. What dealers in 1923? RCA and Victor did not merge until 1929, and
> > Victor
> > in 1923 would not touch radio with a ten foot pole. (Was RCA even
> > manufacturing at that point? I thought in 1923 the Aeriolas were still
> > being
> > made by GE and Westinghouse...)
Shortly after 1923, Victor began offering phonograph-Radiola combinations...
using RCA-made radios...
> >
> > 2. If anyone could be said to have founded the phonograph and record
> > business,
> > realistically I think the Graphophone Company comes pretty close. It was
> > their reworking of Edison's phonograph that spurred Edison to make his
own
> > drastic changes, which began a competitive marketplace for the sound
> > recording/reproduction industry. Berliner meanwhile had invented the
> > Gramophone during that same period, but it would be another eight or
nine
> > years before he was able to set himself up in business and begin
producing
> > records.
> >
Again technically...but Berliner was having records and players manufactured
according to his patent(s) around 1889...but as toys, made by a doll
manufacturer. He first started producing records and players in North
America in 1892, but only on a limited basis until 1895/96. I have an
"etched label" Berliner dated in April 1895, but that may be a
"mis-write" for 1896? The 1889 date probably ties Berliner and the local
companies under the North American banner...?
>
> > Of course, when that trade advertisement came out in 1949, few in RCA's
> > marketing department probably knew or cared about the history of their
> > industry - they were out to pave it over with their miraculous new 45
RPM
> > Microgroove record.
> >
RCA Victor essentially "adopted" the history of Victor and its Berliner
antecedents when RCA and Victor merged in 1929. Around 1950 or so, there
was a special "commemorative" record pressed to promote the 50th
anniversary of their carbon-black supplier, which reissued "the oldest
record in the Victor vaults," a 1901 banjo solo

Steven C. Barr