1890-92 Edison Class M Electric Phonograph * North American Phonograph Co.
$30,000.00
No Sales Tax If Shipped Outside North Carolina.
Historic Edison Class M phonograph leased by the North American Phonograph Co. in the early 1890’s.
The Class M was Edison’s first commercial phonograph venture and a dramatic departure from the relatively primitive tinfoil machine he’d invented more than a decade earlier.
Edison referred to the Class M as his “Perfected Phonograph,” and indeed it was a vast improvement over the tinfoil phonograph, a hand-powered apparatus that recorded sound on strips of foil stretched over a cylindrical mandrel. The tinfoil phonograph played the foil sheets back using the same stylus with which they’d been recorded; the sound quality was at best poor and, because the foil was malleable and the stylus was sharp, the recordings were almost impossible to preserve.
The Class M changed all that. It had a large DC motor powered by 2.5 volts of electricity pulling between 2 and 4 amps at full load. It used a precision flyball governor — mounted vertically on the casting like a magical gyroscope — to regulate the mandrel’s rotation so that recordings could be played back at exactly same speed at which they’d been recorded. It recorded sound on solid wax cylinders rather than flimsy strips of foil, and it played them back with a special ball stylus that would not inflict damage to the wax as it reproduced the sound that had been previously recorded.
The Class M was, as history has shown, revolutionary. Transformative.
The Class M offered here is, in a word, exceptional. Early, authentic & working well (see video below). It was manufactured ca. 1890-92 and is largely untouched. It retains its original early-style cabinet (with its original shellac finish), its original carriage, its original paint and gold decorations, its original cabinet drawer, its original governor (with the correct early skeletal governor cage casting), its original metal tags, its original motor, its original mandrel, its original Standard Speaker (with a stop pin and a low 4-digit serial number), its original swarf brush (with nailed head/bristles), and a large period Grenet cell, the same size and style as the cell pictured in the iconic photograph of the inventor with this invention.
There are two wire updates to the motor, on the side, the leather drive belts have been replaced, and the swarf box beneath the mandrel is a replica. The swarf box was used to catch wax shavings as a cylinder was being recorded, and it is missing from almost all early Class M’s because it was removeable and not an integral part of the cabinet. As you can see from the photographs, however, the swarf box on this Class M is indistinguishable from an original, with tone and graining identical to that of the cabinet.
The phonograph comes with a regulated DC power supply that’s well made and small enough to be hidden just about anywhere.
A marvelous, no apologies Class M that is ready to be acquired and enjoyed.
Due to special shipping requirements, we ask that prospective buyers contact us prior to purchase.
SOLD
