16.

EARLY RECORDS WITH COLOUR

WOUGE records appeared in the 1940s with embedded illustrations of the time.

Made by Sav-Way Industries of Detroit USA.

These records were 25 cm and the speed 78 RPM.

Sounding good compared to the usual shellac records.

The core was of aluminium coated with clear plastic.

****************

Record Guild of America, 16 cm 78 RPM of stiff cardboard.
The very first crude gramophone Emile Berliner invented was merely a toy for young kids.
Still popular well into the 1940s were all kinds of illustrated records for toy gramophones.

Like the one in my blog page no. 2.

**************** 

The brittle shellac gramophone-records hung on for several decades. Still running 78 rounds per minute.

But by new electro technical inventions the grooves could be closer engraved, making the records smaller.

**************** 

So these new and smaller records had to prove that this was a revolutionary and important innovation. Hence the names of the iconic names:
Edison and Bell.




Some radio stations were a bit reluctant to the names Radio and Broadcast. But soon they found out, that collaboration would benefit both radio programs and the gramophone industry. 

****************

Many experiments were made in the 1930s.
A small German view card size only10x14 cm with 78RPM. That had to be a very short version of the "Helen of Troy".





Another huge novelty 1929-30 was the unbreakable record.
Made of thin celluloid it could be bent and was easy to handle.

Over the years they were not flat any more. The material contained camphor that evaporated and made the cellulose acetate instable. But with a light weight pickup from the 1960s they could be played again - sort of.

But they were indeed colourful!

15.

FROM "FALLING PLATES" TO BOXES FOR EVERYBODY

Around 1900 every one recognized the shape of a  camera.

  

    
They were mostly of the folding type with bellows for studio or field cameras like this one.

My father's uncle was very proud of this semi-professional camera for single 12x18 cm glass plates. The combination of parts from Rietzschel, Bausch & Lomb and Rodenstock made his camera outstanding in those days. 

   

Early BOX CAMERAS used glass negatives. 

For amateurs cheaper and easier ways of photographing popped up during this time. Sometimes people called them Detective cameras (?).  Such an innocent looking little case did not look as the camera above.


The rear of the boxes had a magazine loaded with twelve negative glass plates in thin black sheet metal covers.                   

Mostly called Falling plates cameras the system seemed to work fine, though is has been designed already in 1890.
Above all it was cheap and handy. Not very sophisticated lenses and small apertures made bright sunshine a necessity. 
Amateurs gladly accepted that, as they could take 12 pictures in a row!

The entire camera had to be left to the local photo-shop that sent it over to a laboratory. There the plates got professionally handled in red light when developing the plates.

Paper prints were made and the camera was reloaded and returned with twelve new unexposed negatives.

1 Merkur was one of these popular Magazine cameras from Hüttig in Dresden Germany. It had fix focus and crude small apertures marked 1, 2 and 3. (No standard values)

2 Hasselblads Express was a copy of a similar box, but made in Gothenburg Sweden and sold by V.A. Hasselblad about 1899.











Here  I have tried to show that name again because it meant so much to me. In the 1950's HASSELBLAD was a very well-known camera maker. Little did I know, that this family business had started long before 1900. 

This Hasselblad Svea Camera from the early 1900's was a more sophisticated Magazinebox though. New inventions and designs reached the market every year. 

Family story: 
Arvid Hasselblad was a wholesaler who imported cameras already in 1877. He also started a special branch for selling photo equipment. The Swedish agency for KODAK products also was acquired.
Arvids son Karl was the father of the famous inventor Victor Hasselblad, who made this trademark famous in connection with the first Moon landing 1969. Of course KODAK film was used then.

  


 
The Kodak name was registered already in 1885 by George Eastman In USA. It rapidly became the greatest film factory of all. He provided celluloid film for Thomas Edison´s movie experiments. Then a market for film seemed to be a good idea.
Eastman came up with the name KODAK and sold millions of roll-films for still cameras by selling cheap Box-cameras too. 

 The first attempt Kodak no 1 was no hit, but this one called Kodak no 2 was successful and became the origin of all Box-cameras. It was made in Rochester NY USA about 1900.
 A friendly old man gave me this obsolete Box. The odd size of 9 cm films was then no longer obtainable. 

Unlike all later Box-cameras, the film was winded horizontally. The rear part had only the covering leather as hinges. Mine are still intact. But many owners meant that they were all to fragile.

The BROWNIE

was most profitable for Eastman's film sale. Extremely easy camera to make and handle. 

The cheapest price for a Brownie was 2$ !

  

These early boxes were made of cardboard. 

But over the years designs, sizes and materials were improved.
Camera makers all over the world very soon copied this new idea.
Boxes were the most common cameras for the first part of the 20th century.

14

SOME OLD GRAMOPHONE RECORDS

  78'S BEFORE THE 1920'S

Common gramophone records from 1900 to 1950
 were playing at a speed of 78 rpm (revolutions per minute). 

They were made of a black shellac resin and had a diameter of 25 or 30 cm.  

Two sided records became the norm after 1910.

Some years ago however I found a few antique single sided records. 

Engraved on their reverse side was no music, but a picture:

 The Gramophone Co trademark. 

The "Recording Angel" was registered trade mark in 1899. 

The inventor E. Berliner in USA however asked his contractor VICTOR the supplier of clock-work machines and recordings  to introduce the picture "His Masters Voice" on their records. That was a few years earlier than HMV became the final and greatest trade mark in Europe.

Common popular music was often delivered in simple flimsy paper covers with no information but the sales company or store.

The shellac material was furthermore very easily torn to pieces if not handled with care. 

Some said that the labels in those days looked like tombstones with their golden letters on a black background. But among all the companies that were established before the 1920's, many labels were decorated with colourful pictures. 

With a few exceptions the sound was not that colourful.  The "microphone" still was just a horn connected to the engraving machine. The range of sound frequency was limited. Recording studios however made a lot of inventions to enhance the sound quality. 

                        Self portrait of Enrico Caruso in the recording studio.

The acoustic gramophone of the time soon developed to an instrument of precision.

When records were handled with greatest care and the stylus had a correct tip diameter and angle, the music started to be taken seriously.

Music lovers among upper-class people could afford the latest model. They were familiar to opera and the most celebrated tenor in the world: 
                                     

ENRICO CARUSO THE FIRST GRAMOPHONE STAR.  

Apart from being an opera singer, he was a very intelligent man.
He knew exactly how to make the best of the early recording technology. 
His mix of barytone and tenor sound did fit the narrow frequency range perfectly.

The fact that he was an excellent caricaturist shows a great deal of humour too. As the superstar at Metropolitan Opera house for 18 seasons, he loved USA. Born in Naples 1873 he died in New Jersey 1920.

The branch of recordings was multinational. So matrixes made in USA were  distributed to affiliated companies. This one was recorded in 1914 by Victor but pressed in Germany. 

Oddly enough it is single-sided. Maybe it was the last shipment due to the beginning off WWI. During the war in 1917 Caruso recorded the soldier's song "Over there" and helped selling war bonds in USA. That might not have been popular in Germany then.                    

I found this strange record many years ago at a car boot sale in Copenhagen. 

Maybe it had something to do with the First World War too.
Written in Danish it says "His Enemies Voice" 
The message is clear enough. But I still think, that the picture was clever and very funny.





These antique gramophone records have no value any more. The music has now been taken care of by institutions, restored to digital enjoyable files. A lot of them are available on the net for free.