1901 Edison Standard Phonograph — Handmade Display Model

A replica of the Edison Standard Model A — the machine that first let ordinary households own a recorded sound.

Handcrafted as a display piece with the mandrel, reproducer, crank and flared horn of the original. This is a decorative model, not a working phonograph.

Details

• Handcrafted display model — non-functional
• Horn, mandrel, reproducer arm and crank detail
• Hand-applied finish
• Suits a study, library, music room, shop or bar

The machine

Edison's phonograph recorded onto wax cylinders by cutting a groove of varying depth — vertically, unlike the side-to-side groove of the disc records that eventually beat it. Cylinders had better sound quality and worse everything else: they were fragile, bulky to store, and could not be mass-pressed from a master the way discs could.

Edison held out for cylinders until 1929. He was right about the audio and wrong about the business, which is a fairly common combination.