Boy…that takes me back…Dark Shadows! I watched it all the time. I remember Quentins Theme but I don't remember the phonograph at all! Jan
On 2012-07-31, at 6:43 AM, [email protected] wrote: > Ken's post about what got him started with the phonograph hobby inspired me > on to begin a thread about 'first times'. Ken and others, I would be > delighted to read your story. Here follows my own. > > It was probaby 1969, 1970, I was used to catching Dark Shadows, the macabre > gothic TV soap opera, just after getting home from school. I was 15 or 16. > One main line development of the plot involved a musical haunting of the > family homestead by the ghost of a long passed relative who had been walled > up to die in his room with his cylinder phonograph. In 1970, now was his > time to get even. His theme song was incessant and pervasive when he was > active and aprowl; it became a popular 45 release at the time (Quentin's > Theme). His phonograph was an Edison Home, probably a second style model A; > the banner decal was often visible to the viewer. The horn was at first a > black Edison Home model, but later on, when the show started to be broadcast > in color and when we had our first color TV, a maroon morningglory painted > with a wreath of roses. That was how it all began for me. No matter the > vague inconsistencies and inaccuracies of horn > model, phonograph and the purported year of 1899 for having been walled up. > > I drove relatives, family, friends and quite a few strangers crazy with a > growing obsession of wanting a horned phonograph. The passion plunged me > into all kinds of research about the invention and history of the devices; I > was feverishly hunting up anything that might have a picture or > two...which...at that time was a pretty limited library. I wrote a term > paper for a highschool history requirement on the invention. Every weekend > that I could, I haunted a group of antique shops in a nearby town; one had 3 > flowered morningglory horns displaying on a shelf near the ceiling; pink, > blue and green- but no machines; another was offering a black Edison Gem for > $80 or $90 and an Edison Standard with a large brass horn for $150....a > fortune for those days for me. > > Finally, after about a year of of making an ever increasing pest of myself in > every antique shop and flea market in ever-widening radii around my hometown, > we got a fateful phonecall one evening. A gentleman called from a shop > saying he had a machine and would I be interested. He was willing to meet me > and my parents at the shop that very evening. To say we rushed through > dinner is understated; I suggested eating it in the car; some $50 later, I > was the beaming, second owner of a Victor III with black and brass horn as > well as a soon-to-be-treasured Victor batwing 78 of Irish tenor John > McCormack singing Moonlight and Roses. > > Over the years I have had very little contact with other collectors, but I > understand I now live near a couple of major 'powers' in Connecticut. > > I have a small collection mainly because I have not ever had the space nor > great spare funds to afford to keep it fed. And for a period of many years, > I stopped hunting things up; my college and early career, not to mention my > hormones, sent me in other directions entirely for quite a time. I came back > to external horn phonographs around the surfacing of eBay. I have a decided > preference for external horn, Berliner/G&T, Edison and Victor machines > > And since it is such a brief list, I offer the details of my group: > > 1 Victor III > 1 HMV indeterminant 1920s model > 1 Victor pre-dog Monarch Junior (marked Model E), front mount > 2 Edison Standards, model A banner style > 1 Edison Standard, Model F, with the model D designation struck out on the > plate, cygnet number 10 > 1 Edison Home, model B, tall case > 1 Edison Triumph, model A banner style > 1 Columbia AJ, front mount, apparently 3rd style > 1 Columbia early model Q > 1 Gramophone and Typwriter early model 3, new style > > Kevin Tupper > _______________________________________________ > Phono-L mailing list > http://phono-l.org _______________________________________________ Phono-L mailing list http://phono-l.org
