10.

In a dark corner of my cellar I found this old music box

I have not looked inside it for decades. So my curiosity was great. How old is it and does it still work?

The spring motor, regulator and pick-up transportation was all right. Only the needles were gone.

Taking a closer look at the maker's plates ought to show a bit of the origin and age. 

All those patent dates do give quite a bit of interesting information.

  

The origin was a brainchild of Thomas A Edison’s in 1877. But the vast improvements in Charles Tainter and Chichester Bell’s patents from 1886 to 1897 were most important. Together these three gentlemen founded the North American Phonograph Co. Edison kept to his original idea of the phonograph as a dictating machine.  The subsidiary Columbia Co however got the rights to market it as a music machine with lots of entertaining cylinders.

   

An uncle of my fathers who owned this Graphophone managed to engrave a few songs on some of the wax cylinders in the 1920’s. Many years ago I took those short sound recordings to our National Library where they preserved them electronically. 

The brittle brown or black wax cylinders played for 2 minutes on this machine and were more or less worn out over time.

Edison’s last attempt to compete with Emile Berliner's Gramophone was the Blue Amberol as late as 1912. They were “indestructible” celluloid cylinders with twice the playing time. A new type of machine was introduced to fit the slower feeding of the pickup. The increasing development in high quality sound made the Amberolas popular for yet another decade.  

Already in 1901 the inventor of Gramophone records Emile Berliner had this huge hit with a recording of President McKinley's last public speech at the opening of the Buffalo Exposition September 6th 1901, the same day he was assassinated.

Several gramophone companies competed in the beginning of the century. Victor was one of them. This 7 inches copy of the record seems to be from 1904.

So in the long run the market for Phonograph Cylinders decreased. The flat gramophone records were easier to produce, store and handle. They became the future of acoustic sound recording. 

09.

SOME OLD 3D-VIEWERS 

The VIEW-MASTER was a novelty to me in the early 1950’s.

  

An aunt of mine brought this one as she returned from USA. It was souvenirs from places she had visited, like New York, Niagara Falls, California and Hawaii.

I bought this one with a built in source of light. Fed up by pictures like common view cards, I searched for other items. The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II 1953 was one of them. One of the film stars I admired was Grace Kelly. My pictures of her wedding with prince Rainier of Monaco 1956 had more human presence in my view.

NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN.

I still remember the joy of my grandfather's  viewer called stereoscope in those days.

Oliver Wendell Holmes in US started making this stereoscope version. It was the most common type from 1881 to the 1930’s. He based it on an early patent by Sir Charles Wheatstone 1838.

                                               

This picture dated 1901 was made by Underwood & Underwood, the greatest publisher of stereo-graphic pictures. They claimed to deliver 25.000 of them a day in that period.

The first stereo cameras were in fact invented in the middle of the 19’th century. So the awakening interest in 3D pictures during the 1950's had its origin one hundred years ago. 

David Brewster’s viewer from 1849 was a bit more complicated. For non-transparent pictures a mirror lid was adjusted to reflect light onto them. The opaque glass at the back of the viewer let light to pass through glass or tissue paper photos. 

Arc de Triomphe in Paris France.

By adjusting the mirror on the lid to direct light on to the semi- transparent photo, you could experience the monument as seen in broad daylight.

By closing the top lid and use back-light on to the rear side with 

the opaque glass, the result got quite different. It became a very skillful colored night-view. Tiny pinholes represented the illumination sources.

This photo of Arc de Triomphe in Paris seems to be taken in the middle Ages, at least before 1900.

PARIS IN THE 1920'S

This elegant pocket size souvenir was a foldable viewer of high quality. 

Made in France by Unis folding Stereoscopes about 1925. The 3D slides are thin b/w films. 

Sawyers View Masters got a few competitors. Among them RO Mo Vick  and Standard  Click, both from France. In USA Sawyers got a rival called Tru - Vue, that had no success.

It was already in the New York Fair 1939 that Sawyers Portland , Origon US introduced the very first View-Master with proper Kodachrome pictures. Their success lasted for three decades.

08.

35 MM FILM

Leica was the first practical camera that used 1.5 m lengths of standard 35 mm Cine Film. By horizontal transport the frame size got 24×36 mm. That became a very popular format throughout the century.

A Leica? No, just an old Zorki S. It’s a Leica II clone made in Krasnogorsk Mechanical Factory Leningrad USSR as late as 1957. Like the Leica camera it had a coupled range-finder and film change was through the bottom plate. The lens is an Industar-22 f3.5 / 50mm (a copy of the Leitz Elmar).

I joined the Photo Club at high school in 1954, same year as the very first Agfa Silette came on the market. In order to afford this marvel I took a job in the summer holidays. 36 pictures on one roll of film! It had “everything” but automatic devices.

Very educational !

The amount of extra equipment grew pretty soon:

A. The lens hood was mounted at the end of the lens to block the sun or other light source in order to prevent glare and flare.

B. Blue and ultraviolet light in skies often resulted in pictures with a totally white sky on black and white film. A yellow filter gave a nice contrast to the clouds.

C. The macro lens was useful for close-up shots of small objects. Focusing was available by following a manual.

D. The camera had a synchronizer contact for a flash light when the shutter opened. The bulbs were disposable, used only once and then discarded. But indoors with a film speed of 40 ASA no other method was available then. 

E. My cheap light meter contained a graduated blue filter supposed to be turned until the incoming light was no longer visible. Then the scale could be read. That kind of subjective interpretation often failed.

But from a dear friend I got this wonderful beauty

.

GOSSEN SIXTOMAT was made in Erlangen Germany mid 1950’s. This light meter was based on the photoelectric properties of Selenium, so no batteries were needed. It worked perfectly for two decades.

BLACK AND WHITE

  35 mm film needed a proper enlarger. I took care of this PRAXIDOX as a dear memory of my high school photo club. It was made in the early 1930’s by Kamera Werkstätten Dresden Germany. Equipped with a double condenser and a Meyer Görliz Primotar 1:3.5 lens it was the best pre-war enlarger available to us in the 1950’s.

 Why did we young amateurs take that great pain making black and white pictures? 

Well, to tamper with the photos to our own taste in a dark room was simply great fun!

COLOR

KODACOLOR was available. Color paper prints 10x15 cm were developed in professional labs. They were expensive and seldom came out to our expectations. The colors soon bleached and the prints faded out.

But

KODACHROME color reversal film was the first successful color material, used for both cinematography and still photography slides. It was the most archival color film for many decades. We were impressed by the outstanding quality.

By extensive marketing the Eastman Kodak Company popularized the use of 35mm film. It brought photography to the mainstream and kept the products going through the entire 20'Th century. KODAK was the most well-known trademark in the world.

But where to get a projector?

Our school had invested in an expensive 35 mm projector called Unoscop that seemed to be standard in Scandinavia in the 1950’s. For us amateurs there was a cheaper cute little models called 351. Made by Fritz Weist & Co Stockholm Sweden, it worked well and had a magnificent lens: Voigtländer Dynar 1:2.5 / 80

A simple portable tripod with white projection screen from Projecta Holland.

So projected color slides from 35 mm film for home entertainment was new to us.

 We became very enthusiastic and thought it looked "almost like in the Cinema".

07.

WHAT WAS A KINETOSCOPE?

I took these analogue pictures some years ago. My torso of a cinema projector puzzled me very much. 

In some old book I remembered having seen something similar, but when and where…?

His film projector " The Exhibition Model" became Edison's first proper attempt on that market about 1900. 

It seems to have been about five years after his competitors (like Lumiere's) first successful cinema shows.   

KINETOSCOPE

Edison’s Kinetoscope was simply a peephole viewer showing half a minute of "living pictures" for a dime. 

It had been made in large numbers and was still very profitable in arcades and market places since 1894.

                        Up here seemed to be some space for a missing part. What could that be, I wondered?

AND HERE IT IS:

Yes! I have found this drawing now! It shows a second projection lens designed for an additional smart gadget. Just by moving the lamp house to the left, there is a slide holder for sciopticon*) stills on 8 x 8 cm glass plates. So maybe the projectionist could show slides while inserting the next reel of film. A good idea at the time?

*) Magic lantern

ABOUT FILM FORMAT

Of all the patents concerning Edison’s claim on the art of producing movies, the film format became the most important. 35 mm film perforated exactly like the Kinetoscope film became a standard all over the world for cinemas and still photography for the entire twentieth century. During WWII it seemed to be used for a primitive experimental “phonographic recorder” called Recordograph too.

06.

STATE OF THE ART 1967

Revox A77 MK I was made by Studer-Revox; Schweiz

Two tracks HiFi Stereo open reels tape recorder. Heavily built (15 kg) and well designed for professional use by many music studios etc. It contains 3 motors, so capstan and both reel motors are direct drive. (Replacement of worn-out rubber belts in other machines was a common problem.)  So this work horse was exceedingly reliable and performed beautifully for a very long time.

Technology marched on. New updates came rapidly, like Dolby B etc. After a decade this machine was obsolete and I got it for free. I loved the sound very much and enjoyed the possibilities to cut and edit the tapes.

REMAINS OF THE ART 1897

                                                                            “...& TAPE CARE KIT”??

This is a quite a leap in time. But obviously HMV needed to follow the trends in sound recording and provide the market with all kinds of accessories.

The world famous His Masters Voice logo was based upon a fake story about a dog called Nipper listening to his “deceased master’s" voice. Note that the machine on the picture was made by The Gramophone Company in UK already in 1897!

NOT MY GRANDPA’S DOG

  

The HMV dog Nipper looked exactly like my grandfather’s terrier. That one however could not stand gramophone music at all. So as a child I admired Nipper for his patience. 

This ancient picture was extremely popular and used on every product from HMV, needle tin boxes, record dusters and even on the sound-box.

This still working green HMW Portable Gramophone with automatic brake and record carrying turntable was made for export by The Gramophone Company Ltd Hayes Middlesex UK about 1938.

The model was called no 87. 

TRADEMARKS

Not every company had such an eye catching logo as HMV. Still they were as anxious to point out the necessity to use “software” of their own very special trade mark. Needles were worn out and had to be changed often. They were sold in a variety of nice looking tins. Those from Columbia were not as fancy as needle tins from HMW and other makers.

05.

MY OWN CHILDRENS "ANTIQUES" 



Canon IXUS camera for 35mm film. The first IXUS camera came along with the introduction of APS film in 1996. It had a lightweight body in a sophisticated casual design. The excellent ease of operation and a clear sharp viewfinder made it a very popular amateur camera.

Sony Walkman WM-EX323 from Sony Tokyo Japan (1995?) was an affordable lightweight portable 'Stereo' that used standard tape cassettes. A small built-in microphone and a radio receiver were much appreciated by young people.

04.

MY FIRST EXPERIMENTS IN AMATEUR PHOTOGRAPHY

I was ten years old when this second-hand box camera was given to me. It was immediately taken apart. My excitement and curiosity about the function was great. From a book in the school library I soon learned how to handle the camera and how to develop and copy the photos. It was all very primitive, but worthwhile and the start of a lifelong interest in cameras and photography.

The camera is marked No 2 Brownie Mod F and made by Eastman Kodak Rochester NY USA about 1930. It was made of aluminium with leatherette covering and took 6x9 cm pictures on Kodak 120 film.