United records

[Dan]

Good morning I recently purchased a United talking machine symphony to restore. I also bought some United records while looking through them. I saw a United record with a standard disc spindle hole. Did United forget to stamp out the bigger hole or did standard disk put on wrong label? Has anybody seen this before? Thanks.
Dan
See pics

 

[phonogfp]

Dan, nearly all Standard and United records (along with Harmony) were manufactured by Columbia.  These "client brands" had different size spindle holes to accommodate various sized spindles on the respective machines - the idea being to force buyers to purchase their records from the store that sold the machine.  These machines and records are commonly referred to by modern collectors as "Chicago machines/records."

 

Standard (approx. 1/2" diameter spindle) was the first to appear in 1904, and its parent company (the East Liverpool China Company) renamed itself the Great Northern Manufacturing Company in 1907.  At the same time, it began distributing Harmony (approx. 3/4" diameter spindle) talking machines and records.  The United brand (approximately 1 1/2" diameter spindle) appeared in 1911.  By 1916, all three brands were being sold by the Consolidated Talking Machine Company, and there are Consolidated-brand records with spindle holes of all three sizes. 

 

Finding these labels with the "wrong" size hole is not particularly unusual.  An interesting collection can be made of these "Chicago" scheme machines and records, along with the similar concept (although corporately unrelated) Busy Bee and Aretino products.

 

George P.

[Dan]

Thanks George very interesting answer to my question . I found some of this info , but yours is a lot more informative. I’m working on a United Symphony now.

Dan 

[phonogfp]

You're welcome, Dan.  There's more information on these brands in the book, The Talking Machine Compendium, 1877-1929, by Fabrizio & Paul.

 

George P.