The talking machine world (Jan-Dec 1909)

54 THE TALKING MACHINE WORLD. TIMELY TALKS ON TIMELY TOPICS The attitude of the Victor Talking Machine Co. relative to the display of misleading signs and the employment of untruthful — it can he designated by no other term — advertising, is universally commended. Dealers who indulge in this method of inducing business to come their way by bamboozling the public, are taking that undue, if not unfair, advantage of the situation generally known in mercantile affairs as sharp practice. The Victor Co., in a circular letter that appears in this issue of The "World, have administered a deserved rebuke to dealers who have strained a questionable point in this respect, and admonished others who may be inclined to follow in the same footsteps that there are limits in the use of their famous title beyond which even Victor dealers or distributers cannot go without incurring the danger of being "cut off." At the same time that great majority of the Victor army who are above such paltry subterfuges are greatly gratified that the company, whose good name has been taken in vain, have come to their rescue and checked a custom — growing to formidable proportions — that placed them in a false light, and apparently wrongly magnified the importance of competitors "guilty as charged in the indictment." News paragraphs of ancient lineage and suspicious value are never suffered to pass out of existence by the daily press. Occasionally the so-called "scientific" publications are similar sinners. In this category the following, now "going the rounds" again, may be placed: "The talking postal card is the invention of a French engineer, and has become so popular in that country that the American rights have been secured and the device will be placed in the cities of the United States. The person wishing to send a talking postal card to a friend enters the booth and talks into a machine that records the words on the specially prepared postal card. When the recipient receives the card 100 or 1,000 miles away, he; or perhaps she, takes the card to the nearest postal booth and inserts it in a machine which talks the message it contains. The record on the postal card is indestructible and the exact voice of the sender is heard." The "talking postal card" sounds extremely familiar, and is doubtless the same "novelty" introduced from abroad several years ago in the form of a small celluloid disc record pivoted to a card designed to send through the malls, the address, etc., appearing on the obverse side. To be sure, these were stock cards and the records a few bars of music to be reproduced on a small machine. However, as has been truthfully said of many ideas, it is but a step from the sublime to the ridiculous, and this may be applied with equal force to this "invention of a French engineer" when it comes to the recording of sound on any kind of record for reproduction. In the first place, the human voice, to be intelligible, must be of a certain tone quality, and cannot be recorded without suitable apparatus, the exercise of unusual skill and proper surroundings. Secondly, the popular fallacy that the recording of sound is a simple and child-like process, such as this "talking postal card" provides, condemns the article out of hand. And the necessity of using the special "postal booth" for the reproduction is equally absurd. The assertion that the American rights have been secured to place this invention in the principal cities of the United States is a figment of the imagination. The fool killer has long since finished his work regarding such schemes. For a comprehensive view of current trade conditions the occasional conferences of the selling forces of the manufacturing companies afford jan 'excellent opportunity. Recently, or to be exact, the western salesmen of the National Phonograph Co. assembled in Chicago December 28, meeting General Sales Manager Dolbeer. On January 4, at the factory in Orange, N. J., the eastern travelers came together. Among themselves the frankest expression of opinion was invited at both of these interesting gatherings of men who keep in the closest touch with the trade throughout the year. The meetings were executive, of course, but the reports coming therefrom indicate that these "knights of the grip" look forward with enthusiasm to the present year as one of great possibilities for the talking machine business. Doubtless the Victor, Columbia and Universal companies have gone over the same ground with their selling forces in their own way, and with like results. Concerns engaged in the manufacture of minor requisites and essentials, so far as can be ascertained, are in a similar frame of mind. It remains for the jobbers and dealers to gird up their loins, assume an aggressive and progressive attitude, and with a long pull and a strong pull and a pull all together, these predictions will be realized. Still the several big things that were about ripe to be launched on the trade linger in the lap of uncertainty. Premature announcement is occasionally what may be forcibly described, colloquially, as a "bad break"; then, again, hope deferred maketh the heart sick. Patience, however, is a virtue, and under the circumstances it should be exercised in justice to those immediately concerned in these enterprises of great pith and moment. Within the next few weeks will be adjudicated several of the crucial patent cases dealing with basic and constructive talking machine inventions that have been before the United States courts for years. By the time The World reaches its readers the Berliner suit will have been argued in the Supreme Court of the United States; the Jones process for duplicating disc records been again before the United States Circuit Court of Appeals; and the cause celebre of the New York Phonograph Co. against the National Phonograph Co. and others, heard by the same tribunal. Possibly before the next issue decisions in every one of these cases may have been rendered, and in that event, as was once observed, "we will know where we are at!" A splendid large portrait of Thomas A. Edison in colors, sketched from life, appeared lately in the Sunday edition of the New York Herald, as the first of the ten greatest living Americans, excluding politicians. The series are confined to men who are paramount in philosophy, literature, invention and kindred fields of human endeavor. And lo! the "Wizard of Orange" — the inventor of the phonograph — heads the distinguished list, This is a reminder that on February 11 Mr. Edison will be sixty-two years of age — in the best of vigorous health and keenly interested in the many and varied subjects he has made his life study and to which his best intellectual efforts have been given. In no one year has the work of the Columbia Phonograph Co., General, been so effective or created so favorable an impression in the trade at large. The increase in the list of Columbia jobbers and dealers is proof positive that 1908 was a red letter year, and General Manager Lyle, now on a well-earned vacation in Europe, is to be congratulated on the energetic and successful manner in which the new selling policy of his company was inaugurated, carried forward and firmly established. Occasionally is heard the plaint that European manufacturers are "away ahead" of the United States in the perfection, completeness, elegance, practicability, utility — with a dozen more eulogistic adjectives additional and then some — of talking machines, records, etc., etc. Usually importing agencies who are unable to "butt in" the great market here are wont to express themselves in this jaundiced strain; but the soft impeachment will not hold water. Else why should our manufacturers — the inventors, originators and discoverers of nearly every vital improvement — desire to turn out their product under the personal supervision of their own factory experts, superintendents and capable working force in all branches? Goods of the same nature made in European plants lack uniformity and finish and will not pass muster under the high standards maintained here. At least, such is the opinion of men who speak by authority, being acquainted with both markets. When it comes to the "cheap and nasty," as one wellknown traveling sales manager termed it, then "Europe is ace high" — a doubtful compliment. The aim here is not how cheap, but how good, with the best none too good. A distinction and a difference! The building occupied by the Columbia Phonograph Co., General, in the City of Mexico, Mexico, is over 300 years old and is the oddest structure imaginable. The material of which it is constructed is a composition of volcanic stone and cement, and its most remarkable attribute is that for three centuries it has withstood the least sign of climatic exposure, particularly searching and wearing in that part of the world. Ancient hieroglyphics of historical significance ornament the outer walls, possibly prophesying the wonders of the modern talking machine that would be found on the premises later on. Export Manager Burns, when pressed for an interpretation, fancies something like this would go (nobody else knows the difference), but at the same time he will not "stand for the story." An excellent photograph of the antique place, ornamented with Columbia signs a la Espafiol, adorn his private office at headquarters in the New York Tribune building. A coal-black "coon" called at the office of the New York Talking Machine Co. (nee Victor Dis SPECIAL-FABRIK CARL SCHROETER BERLIN S 42. PRINZESSINNENSTR. 21 FLURSTEDT bei Apolda i. Th., Germany E. SAUERLANDT CHEMISCHE FABRIK The largest manufacturing plant in the world devoted exclusively to the manufacture of Master Waxes for Gramophone and Phonograph Recording Sole Manufacturer of Sauerlandt's Material for Hard Moulded Records Attention paid to the Manufacture of any Special Material. Master-Wax ALL MATERIALS PROTECTED BY PATENTS.