GRAMOPHONES and PHONOGRAPHS
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BOOK REVIEWS
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HIS MASTER'S GRAMOPHONE
by Brian Oakley & Christopher Proudfoot
(Two of the UK's foremost authoritative Experts on HMV Gramophones)
Approximately 31cm by 22cm by 2.5cm (12" by 8.75" by 1")
Review by Richard Scott (United Kingdom) - April 2011
I was recently provided with a copy of His Master's Gramophone, which has just been published by Brian Oakley and Christopher Proudfoot and is, I am sure, destined to be found on the bookshelves not only of serious gramophone collectors but also a much wider audience including those just starting out in the hobby, and others interested in the history of the recorded sound industry.
The authors set out with the intention of illustrating and describing every known gramophone sold by The Gramophone Company in the UK from 1897 to 1960, and have succeeded in producing an impressive hardbound book of 276 pages in which their ambitions have been comprehensively realised.
The book has an attractive sleeve with an illustration of a walnut Trade-Mark Gramophone from 1898/99 on the front cover and a red Model 102 from 1957 on the back.
The authors dedicate the book to the memory of Roger Thorne, and acknowledge that many of his research notes completed in the 1980s enabled them to produce this book which now fills a very large gap which has existed in the works of reference available to collectors new and old.
The book is presented in an eminently readable form, even explaining in the introduction the conversion from imperial to metric measurement and original to decimal currency for readers brought up with the latter.
There is also a two-page historical summary of the Company and its activities which is sufficient to set the chapters on the machines which follow in useful context, but not overly complicated with to much detail.
The eight chapters which follow are generally in chronological order and detail the pre-tone-arm Trade Mark style gramophones, the Monarch external horn series and higher volume machines for use in the open air, public places and schools, followed by chapters on floor standing cabinet machines, 'hornless' (lidless) and 'table gramophones with lids', followed by 'portables' and a chapter on Tonearm Zonophones.
Each chapter is lavishly illustrated, generally with one page per machine and descriptions of the case, motor, horn, sound box and traveling arm or tone arm and price in each case, together with dimensions and an overall
descriptive paragraph.
The authors traveled thousands of miles from collection to collection to complete the photographs, but in the few cases where actual examples have been unavailable, they have included appropriate extracts from promotional literature produced by the Company.
A series of seven very thorough appendices at the end of the book cover everything from a history of the Lumiere pleated diaphragm machines through to transfers, labels and keys, motors, speed controls, sound boxes and
winding handles.
These provide a very effective and detailed means for collectors to date their machines, and to ensure that they are equipped with the original parts appropriate to each model.
This includes useful commentary on machines which may be found with different types of sound box, for example, both of which may have been appropriate to a particular model produced at a time of transition from one model to another.
The authors admit that the Company's model numbering system is often baffling, and while they have attempted to explain it, they acknowledge themselves baffled by the system of numbers applied to motors, nor have they attempted to unravel the bewildering variety of serial numbers.
To conclude, I can heartily recommend this book to all those old and new to our hobby as it is to the gramophone collector what George Frow and Albert Sefl's 1978 seminal work on The Edison Cylinder Phonographs 1877-1929 has been to phonograph collectors over the years.
It is an excellently researched and beautifully presented compendium which while being a fascinating source of information and detail will not be out of place on the coffee table of those with a more casual interest.
This Review by Richard Scott
was published by the City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society (CLPGS) Summer 2011
Review by George Glastris (United States of America) - June 2011
It has always been a shame that most American collectors tend not to collect machines from other countries. One reason for this has been a scarcity of knowledge about these machines. Well, for one important maker, there are no more excuses not to collect.
His Master's Gramophone by Christopher Proudfoot and Brian Oakley is not only a welcome addition to the literature but a sorely needed one. The Gramophone Co. (also known at times as The Gramophone & Typewriter Ltd. and later HMV) was, to put it very simply, the British version of Victor, albeit a fully independent one. Although they shared patents, technology, recordings, and marketing (Nipper was an English dog after all) they were two very distinct companies with their own products and culture.
The authors are among the few who could have tackled this work, and they have done stellar work. They have given us a very readable tome, running to 250 plus pages with over 450 photographs (almost all color), great technical facts, and even an appendix illustrating different types of moulding found on cases and cabinets (I knew about Ogee and Reverse Ogee moulding's but who knew there was a Quirk Ogee moulding?).
One major difference between the Victor Talking Machine Co. and the Gramophone Co. was variety. Whereas Victor early on settled on a standard range of models and kept them largely unchanged for years, Gramophone (I'm using this name to cover the entire history of the company) had a far greater variety of models over the years, many of which were either short lived or sold in limited numbers. To add to this, they changed model designations over the life of the machine. This has led to confusion for years as to what machine one owns; is it a Style 15, 13 or 17, a Monarch Senior (or was that Senior Monarch), a Triple Spring Monarch, or a Model 7? Across a room they all look the same, but small changes or date of production meant a different name. Over here it's basically a Monarch Special.
One area where Gramophone really out-shined their American Cousins was with the high-end machines. No Victor VI for them. This being England where your home was a period style (and not Sears, Roebuck's idea of period style) there was a genuine demand for period style cabinets. This was true not only in the internal horn machines, but was begun during the days of the horn models. There were three versions of the Sheraton along with matching stands, an Empire model for those with French tastes, and the gorgeously Art Nouveau De-Luxe and Melba. Cabinet machines of the early hornless years ranged from Chippendale Grand (and nothing like the Edison cabinet of the same name), Sheraton Grand, Junior Grand, Bijou Grand, even a Library Bijou Grand - two actually, one oak with herringbone inlay and one mahogany with stringing (ah, the English, a Gramophone for every room in the house). Oh, and don't think these were just different sizes of the same design, no two looked alike.
Britain at the time was an Empire, and the Jewel in the Crown was India. Thousands of His Majesty's subjects lived and worked in India, and equally exotic parts of the Empire, and one of the pleasures from home they wanted was a gramophone. The company offered a range of machines for export to, or assembled in, India with locally made cabinets. A number of these were made with teak to better withstand the climate, and horn models were still being offered into the 1930s. For the collector, you can now see which ones really were HMV's and not one of those appalling modern reproductions that are on the market.
Finally, a special bow should be given to Roger Thorne. He began doing research work in the EMI Archives in the 1980s, and the authors credit his work with "forming the basis" of the book. Sadly, as the book was at the printers, Roger passed away suddenly.
Even if you don't own a Gramophone Company machine, this book will teach you much about the talking machine in general. There is a plethora of information here on everything from sound box design to cabinet construction. Audiophiles will enjoy the discussion on the Re-entrant Models which have more sophisticated versions of the Orthophonic horn. The larger two models sold in fairly limited numbers and for years were auctioned for increasingly high prices. Trainspotters (look it up) will find great satisfaction with the pages of information on the many variations of portable machines the company produced. Personally I admire a company and people with the confidence to call their first hornless machine the Pigmy Grand!
This Review by George Glastris
was published by the California Antique Phonograph Society (CAPS) Summer 2011
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