Please forgive me if this has come up before. I have four Edison phonographs with the "urn" style grill. I have generally seen the grills to be oriented in such a way as to have the "urn" on the bottom, apparently with the open end up. On the other hand, here is what I observe about my machines.
I have two A250 Diamond Disc machines. Both of their grill frames have the top edge cut at 90?, whereas the bottom edge is around 87-88?. One sees this done with the latch side of a door so that as the door closes it does not scrape the frame, yet when the door is closed it produces a visible edge which is close to the frame. Using this analogy, I would conclude that the bevelled edge is the bottom one and the 90? edge is inserted first into the deeper slot in the top of the frame opening. In fact, one of these grills can physically only be inserted in this orientation. The resulting orientation of the "urn" is at the top of the grill, opening down. I have an Amberola 1A (sn 16xx) which has a narrow tongue along both top and bottom edges. The longer tongue must be inserted into the top of the frame opening first because of the geometry of the frame which once again forces the grill to be oriented with the urn at the top, opening down. It will not fit in the other orientation. On the other hand, my Amberola 1B (sn 39xx), while having the same bevelled edge along one side only as do the A250's, must be inserted so that the urn orientation is on the bottom, opening up. Has anyone else similarly observed this in their own machines? Is the orientation of the urn indeed different in earlier machines from those later on, or was it random despite what is generally seen in photos, or were my machines just manufactured on a Friday afternoon? I would appreciate your comments since I have a walnut 1A which needs to have a grill installed in the existing grill frame and I have the choice of which way to install it. Cheers, Don
