A Better Life New York
Steve "The Judge" focuses on the art of enjoying yourself through food, fun and frolic. Steve conducts live Interviews on many popular and controversial topics. Steve has candid conversations about fine dining to BBQ, cigars to cars, history making events and everything in between. Recently, we added a special monthly addition ion collecting Antique Phonographs with experts Wyatt Markus, and Collector/Dealers Joe Hough and Tracy McKinney. Sponsored by Premium Botanicals the maker of Herbal Spectrum a line of full spectrum Hemp based CBD products. http://www.mypbcbd.com
A Better Life New York
Part Two: Discovering Antique Phonographs: My Interview with Wyatt, Joe and Tracy. Reviving These Early 20th-Century Marvels.
CLICK HERE! To send us a message! Ask us a Question or just let us know what you think!
Unlock the secrets of early recording technology with our special guests Wyatt, Joe, and Tracy, as we journey through the groundbreaking era of the phonograph. Discover how the laborious process of creating wax cylinders and the technological marvel of electroplating turned phonograph recordings into a worldwide phenomenon. We promise insights into the lives of iconic artists like John McCormack and the fascinating story of how their musical successes translated into financial triumphs.
For those with a passion for history and collecting, we share personal tales of acquiring and restoring antique phonographs, offering expert tips on navigating auctions and identifying valuable models like the Edison Fireside and Triumph. Listen as we emphasize the joy and mental health benefits that come from immersing oneself in this captivating hobby. Our conversation also explores the evolving market value of these historical machines, providing guidance on spotting rare finds at unbeatable prices while enjoying the thrill of preserving these auditory treasures.
We also examine the legacy of titans like Thomas Edison, drawing surprising parallels between his innovative practices and the origins of modern-day music genres like hip-hop. From grassroots cylinder machines to early DJs, explore the unexpected connections that have shaped the music industry. As we expand our podcast to reach a global audience, we are excited to bring you supplemental episodes in audio and video formats. Engage with us, share your feedback, and join us on this extraordinary auditory adventure.
Hello everyone and welcome back to A Better Life, new York. I bring you back to part two of our conversation with Wyatt, joe and Tracy. And now part two. And what's interesting and correct me when I'm wrong, guys is those cylinders are originally recorded. So everything's realized that there are no microphones, right, everything's recorded acoustically.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they were all recorded through a megaphone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, caruso, what his major voice are singing through these megaphones and the instruments have megaphones. There was one master made and they only made for a long time individual cylinders from the master, one at a time, isn't that correct.
Speaker 2:I'm going to go back a little bit further. At the very beginning of the cylinder era, when wax cylinder records were being sold to the public, the company would have a performer come in and they would line anywhere from 10 to 20 machines in front of that performer and that performer would record for about two and a half minutes their piece, while all of these machines were recording simultaneously. But then you only get 20 or 25 records. So what does the performer do? When that session's over? They do it again. Performer do when that session's over, they do it again.
Speaker 2:And some performers would record a dozen or a couple dozen times a day to produce records, and each record was an original. But what they did not? To get too technical, they would put graphite on these wax records and then they would electroplate them with copper and you would thus create a mold and you could pour wax into that mold and, yes, as you said, take one master record and from that one single record, press or pour thousands of them. Now, on one hand, the performer is not getting paid for 25 recording sessions in a day, they're only getting paid for one. But for the manufacturer that's distributing these records, that's money in the bank and they started mass-producing records. The phonograph just exploded. It was a worldwide phenomenon and made these people famous. Oh, worldwide fame and a clock.
Speaker 1:Does that her name? And I'm a glue, I'm a she. What?
Speaker 2:a voice she became like the first famous woman singer yes, uh, and who's the other one, the the first big singer? Now, pardon, ada, not Ada Jones, actually it was John McCormack. He was, I think, the first phonograph performer. Oh, I hope this is correct. He was the first one to make $100,000.
Speaker 1:Really.
Speaker 2:As a performer and $100,000 back in the teens early 20s was a lot of money and $100,000 back in the teens early 20s was a lot of money.
Speaker 1:It's funny because I just I bought a whole bunch of records at auction, maybe 300. They're all still in boxes and the guy that saw that, the auction, that shipped it first of all. They must have broke at least 30 or 40 of them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're just baked clay discs with a little shellac mixed in.
Speaker 1:I know but they didn't really pack it, they just filled the box. They didn't put anything around it and I complained because he charged me a lot of money to ship it. But I bought it real cheap. So who cares? But I just get mad at it. I didn't see anything there that would have blew my mind stuff I probably already had anyway. But there was a lot of that era recording at least 101 box it's probably more than three now, but I haven't gone through them all yet. I went through one box last night and Joe and I have been using an ultrasonic cleaner to clean the records. I had found one. I started using it. I couldn't believe it. I called him, sent him a picture of it and he said what is it? He bought it right away and we've been going through our collection. I have about 1,078, so I'm still in the middle of it.
Speaker 4:It certainly is a lot better than one by one, which Tracy and I started doing back in the day. We only got through about 50 when we gave up.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 4:The ultrasonic cleaner does seven to 10 at a time, and so we took three weeks and all of our records are now clean.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you for that, by the way. Thank you.
Speaker 1:I was sick all week so I cleaned a lot of records and I have, I don't know, three or 400 diamond discs and I have no idea how much cylinders. I haven't gotten to them yet.
Speaker 4:Would you like three or 400 more? Oh, so don't put the diamond disc in the cleaner.
Speaker 1:I'll sit back down now. I have one, two, I have one two. I have three diamond disc players. I have I don't know what that one is A C-150 maybe, and then I have a Chalet.
Speaker 2:For all of you listeners out there that know all of the model designations every floor model or table model that was made not that was made, but they had different furniture designs. So if you're familiar with the sheraton design or the chippendale design, and they had different designations for the model and the chalet was a tabletop cabinet that was made out of gumwood and it plays diamond disc records which we can talk about today, tonight or some other.
Speaker 1:The chalet is interesting because it was meant to like bring to a place that it would be loud enough for people to dance in a room.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was a small enough cabinet, it was priced right and you could put it on a table. It didn't take up floor space and it didn't weigh a lot, so you could move it from one room to another as needed. Oh, it weighs a lot. Oh, when I say a lot.
Speaker 1:So you could move it from one room to another as needed.
Speaker 2:Oh, it weighs a lot. Oh, when I say a lot, like a floor model could weigh 250 pounds, Right, but that one's probably more in line with 70 or 75 pounds, which is light in this.
Speaker 1:And then I have the small A100, which is a small floor model that I drove out. Some lady had it, she called me. She says I want to get rid of it. It works fine. It had been refinished, but when I took the refinish off it was a new life. The wood, which is like a cream, that's like a cleaner. It looks unbelievable. It's missing two little clover leaves. Actually, what happened was they'd lost a crank and they bought a replaceable crank, except it couldn't fit in the hole with the, the whole plate over it. I don't know what you call those then grommet, yeah it's scutcheon, scutcheon thank you.
Speaker 1:It couldn't fit with the scutcheon so they took the scutcheon off. Yeah, when I found an original hammer and an original scutcheon and replaced it and now it looks fantastic and it works well and it plays great and it's in my office because it isn't as big as everything else In my office. I have a gramophone W that I bought from Joe, with a big nickel plated horn. I have a I try to have a little cross section of everything. I have the XX80 Petrola. On top I have an Edison standard banner with a big red horn. I have the Columbia gramophone table model, the one I bought from you, right?
Speaker 4:Yes, what is that a?
Speaker 1:100 or 150 or something.
Speaker 2:It's a tabletop with the oak finish and, dear listener, this is exactly what collectors like Steve Joe and I sound like when we're talking to each other and we talk in codes. It's a C250 with a double spring motor, with the side mounted crank, and it's in the gold finish in the oak cabinet, and there was an option for mahogany, but that was, you know, ten dollars more, which was a lot of money back in the day. Or did you have an edison triumph? Yeah, I got a triumph.
Speaker 1:it's a mahogany finish with a triple spring motor and after a while, you start to sound like us you know, I've been criticized because my I've been criticized on our facebook page by very famous people, collectors, or at least famous people in the society, who have accused me of having more machines than knowledge. And I admit I have more machines than knowledge. But tough.
Speaker 4:The knowledge will come in plenty of time. Don't worry about it.
Speaker 2:Our attitude needs to change too, because we need to welcome more people into the hobby Me too.
Speaker 2:Even today, I still get negativity in some of these internet groups from people that they take it upon themselves to have to correct me. And I'm not infallible. I make mistakes, I'll say the wrong thing sometimes, and instead of being nasty, it's better to be kind and just say oh no, that isn't opinion gear, that is a spur gear, and I'll be like Thank you for helping me, thank you for correcting me on that. I appreciate your help. Isn't that better than? Oh, you said it was a spur gear? It's a pinion gear and it's not the first pinion gear. It's the second pinion gear and it's called a spring barrel. It's not called a spring box or whatever. Canister, canister, a can, it's okay, I get it. I get it.
Speaker 3:That's one thing that got.
Speaker 3:Joe and I really into it is. We were lucky enough to meet the right people early that were willing to help and teach us why, it being one of the main ones and it was without judgment and it was just no. Let me teach these new people about the hobby and the right terminology and how to work on things and fix things, and without that we really probably wouldn't be as into it as we are, because we were welcomed with open arms, and that's a big thing. In any hobby right. In any hobby right. If you want to keep it going, especially something like this that is going out of style or not really out there, you have to welcome new people with open arms and help them learn it, understand it and appreciate it in a manner that isn't going to be a turnoff.
Speaker 3:And oh, I don't want to be a part of that because I don't understand it so clearly. I can't be a part of it. It's not an exclusion. The more people we include, the more we keep this history around and the more we educate people in the future. I mean, joe and I are learning every day. I think all of us learn something periodically about it. Wyatt may be less than the rest of us, he's still learning.
Speaker 2:Every day I learn something.
Speaker 3:There's always something more to learn that we don't know.
Speaker 1:I meet collectors online and learn about them and have conversations with them People that have one or two or three machines and then maybe have bought and sold other machines but only have a couple and really concentrate on the music or concentrate on the recordings, and I find that admirable. I wish I could do that, but I'm beyond that it's part of the ecosystem.
Speaker 2:You're going to have people that just focus on the records. You're going to have people like me that focus on the machines and the technology. You're going to have people that call them I call them finders. All they do is find and sell to us collectors. I find resellers all the time. And then you have restorers, like Joe and Tracy, that also buy and sell machines. And the ecosystem has many parts and we even have bottom feeders the guys that go and they buy these $25 machines and they bring it home because it's within their budget and they'll take months or weeks or days to fix it and make it functional and it's a great feeling. That's the feedback, that's the. Was it the dopamine hit? Is that right? It's. That's how we get our fix.
Speaker 1:My thought is preserving the history of it all.
Speaker 1:We clearly I bought a lot of a gentleman's collection who recently passed away the last couple of years, and his wife had this massive collection. He lived in New Jersey. He wasn't one of the more known collectors that passed away but he was very close to him and he has a massive collection in his little house in new jersey where he collected. I mentioned it to you, wyatt, he collected train whistles and bells, fire whistles and bells and I don't know how the house didn't collapse upon itself he had these things that took five people to bring into the house, the big, massive bells from the top of a diesel engine.
Speaker 1:And he had a good friend that was a very big collector in New Jersey and we all know who I'm talking about.
Speaker 1:He'll go on and mention and he would buy and trade things with him. So I went to the house and I missed on a lot of good stuff. But I bought a lot of good stuff too, and there's still horns and cranes and things she has. I bought boxes of cylinders from her Blue ones, Ambarola I don't want to say Ambarola as well, and my production's all off because my mouse is all messed up, so I apologize. Black wax two minutes, four minutes, and I had three gems, five standards, 2 clip, 4 clip.
Speaker 2:We need to get you into my arena of discovery, which is going into the basements of old mansions and leaky old barns. I like that, yeah, where it's humid and there's that light fragrance of black mold in the air and you have to go in with a mask and it's dark because the electric was shut off in the 1970s and just looking for old records and stuff. I went into a basement three years ago that was flooded with four feet of water and it was surrounded by rusting machines that were formerly fine and cabinets are rotting and I found parts high up on shelves that were long forgotten, that I actually needed. But it's the story aspect too, like how I found my first machine, how Joe and Tracy found theirs, how you found your first machine. But there's always the story of the hunt and that's part of this chatter that we all have with each other and it's endless. It is truly endless. It's so endless indeed that Joe and Tracy have actually invited me into their home to stay here, because we talk so much, so we might as well talk over breakfast, lunch and dinner and while we're working on machines.
Speaker 2:It creates friendships too and connections. That's another great part of the hobby. Because of the internet. Hey, I've met you. I met Joe and Tracy over the internet and we have this little it's not little anymore this global family of people. I was just talking to someone that works at a radio museum in Norway, that has an Edison and wanted to know how to get it fixed. And because of the internet we're able to connect more and I've made dozens of new friends over the past couple of decades and they are lifelong friends, and that's just another great benefit of being involved with this.
Speaker 1:Joe introduced me to Ed, ed Warner and Ed's worked on all my Edisons. I've carried more machines up and down those damn stairs that I want to admit to.
Speaker 4:Ed loves fixing things and I try to tell him to slow down, but he will. He's so excited that the glisten in his eye when I think I saw you had a fireside in there.
Speaker 1:Another auction house in New Jersey listed a machine, and I could tell where the way they wrote it, that they didn't really know what it was. There weren't great pictures, but it wasn't a home and it looked like a triumph, and so I said you know what? If it doesn't go for a lot, I'm going to bid on it. So it came with this big red horn that's now on another machine, and I went there and picked it up Now, I got it at a really good price and you thought it was a good price too, joe and worked, but it had some wear on it.
Speaker 1:Somebody had accidentally left the, opened it up, and the top flipped over onto the floor. The only thing that really got damaged, though, was the case. The mechanism was fine. It needed to be cleaned. It may have been by a heater at one time. So and I'm like again, I'm in no rush I got plenty of things to listen to, and he went methodically through it, and then, of course, talking to Joe, everything got out of hand. It really should have different horn on it the wood horn, signet horn out of hand.
Speaker 4:It really should have different horn on it, the wood horn signet horn Okay.
Speaker 1:And I'm like, oh, that signet wood horn is on my fireside. I could take that out and put it on my Triumph. I bet it would be nice. So then, what happened? So now I need another signet horn, which I've already bought, to put on, not a wood one, but a black one to put back on my fireside, because it has that horizontal, horizontal carriage with a B Top mount.
Speaker 2:Here we are again with the terminology Darn it. You're saying standard, fireside and Triumph and your listeners are like what?
Speaker 1:the heck are these people talking about? Probably a standard? Maybe I should let you explain, because you actually know, and I'm just going to make it up, it's just the name terminology for different.
Speaker 2:You know, like your gem is your less expensive model and it was marketed as the gem phonograph, excuse me. And then you have your standard, your triumph. There's a whole bunch of names. Oh, there's one thing if anyone wants to learn more about all of this, there are books out there that have been published in the last 40 years, and there are even a few books on the apple store. If you have an apple device and there it, we're no longer out in the wild walking around aimlessly, not knowing what we're looking at. There's a reference book for nearly every machine that's out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the zone of, I was just gonna ask that question, yeah they're in books.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite books is called the talking machine, a complete compendium and you can google that. I think schiffer books publishes it. If you only want to buy one book, it's going to cover most of the machines. It's an excellent introduction and a lot of the younger collectors that I talk to they're asking me questions. I'm like stop pump the brakes, big stuff. You need to buy a book and sit down and read and learn because you have all this enthusiasm. I can hear it in your voice. You really are interested and turned on by these things. Now it's time to get educated, and that's another aspect of it. We haven't even talked about the books and the ephemera and everything else and how specialized all this is. But yeah, that's just your model designations. We talk about it so casually because the four of us know what these are, but when we use those weird words, it's just the models that we're talking about, the different ones.
Speaker 1:And realize that the prices on some of the more common machines, Edison, especially the standards, the homes, they've pretty much lowered a great deal even in the past year.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, in the past 20 years because more of them are out in the wild to be found there was a machine called an opera which is an Edison opera. 20 years ago that was a 10 to $12,000 machine because people would be in the hobby for 50 years. They'd never see one. But now you can get an opera for 4,500, $5,500 or less If you're really fortunate. I've had a few customers buy them in an antique store for $200 because the dealer just didn't know, because the antique dealer didn't have the books. They didn't have the education. Anyone that I talk to that's new at this. I say the first thing, the most powerful thing you can do, is buy the books, start reading casually, educate yourself. So when you're out there, steve, you'll be able to. I know you're going to go into an antique shop and be like, ah, that's an Edison fireside with a signet horn, a swan's neck horn, and you'll have a. You'll gain an idea of what the value should be and I don't collect on value Some people do.
Speaker 2:Some people are like, oh, how much is that worth, how much is that worth? But for me it doesn't matter. If it's affordable, that's good. What's not an investment? Stocks and what are the other things? Annuities, those are investments. But for me, the investment is in my mental health and my sanity, which is another program entirely the mental health, the DSM of phonographs, we can call it For people like me that I live alone. For the most part, they keep me company. I'm never in a quiet room because there's always sound. Gosh, this is such a big subject. No wonder so many books have been written about it. But okay, yeah, look for the DSM of phonographs. It'll be out in 2026. I have to collaborate with a few psychiatrists and psychologists.
Speaker 1:So anyway, so that triumph is going to become with all Ed's hard work is going to be something special.
Speaker 4:It sounds fantastic work.
Speaker 1:It's going to be something special. It sounds fantastic. Yeah, it's almost done. I bought the reproducer from you. I don't know which one. It was H I got because I have a whole handful of Cs, but I had the H and of course Ed wanted it. So he kept saying can I trade the H and the C for my K? And I finally said okay, you have a K now.
Speaker 4:Yeah, why did he do that? Why did I do it? I don't know why he did that, but a K is more convenient.
Speaker 1:In his mind. I think he thought that I wouldn't swap them out, and he may be correct. I may just leave whatever's in there because I'm, and why doesn't it?
Speaker 4:play.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's like my gem that has the four minute two minute thing on there, Never know which way the gear is supposed to go thing. But he was trying to make it easier on me in his mind. So I said, okay, I'm happy that he worked so hard on them and he does great work. I'm trying to learn more about other things that I mean I can be a little impulsive when I purchase things. I don't know if Joe might've witnessed some of that, even when I was at his house.
Speaker 4:Well, you know what? That's what you call excitement?
Speaker 4:You're in the front, yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that. I think you'll find we're four years into it now, which is nothing compared to some others, Four years certainly compared to some of the other collectors. It is just scratching the surface, but our tastes have already changed quite significantly in the four years and I still though like, even if I have a couple of the same model, they sound different, they play different, they look different. One might be a lighter oak, one might be a darker oak, but they're all snowflakes, they're all a little bit different.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you definitely change your taste in machines. In the beginning we were pretty shoot at the hip, we saw it, we bought it thing as well. And then the more you learn, the more you appreciate different ones, the more you go for the look or the sound. Everybody's taste is going to change a little bit in the collection. Ours definitely has, and we've sold machines that we probably didn't think we would sell when we first started. And we have some machines that we just don't want to sell.
Speaker 3:That wouldn't be something that somebody else would keep. For example, my favorite is a French model. Some call it a Pathé, some call it a Pathé, depending on who you talk to. But that is my favorite machine in the house, but it's not going to be everybody's favorite. The other thing for new listeners and people looking to get into the hobby don't be afraid to ask online, even if you might get somebody that might be a little snarky or short-sighted, that's okay. There's going to be people out there like that. But if you have a question about a machine that you want to buy, okay, there's going to be people out there like that. But if you have a question about a machine that you want to buy, I highly recommend you post and ask before purchasing, because there are a lot of fakes out there. They'll call them frankenfones or crapophones or there's different terminology that are not originals and were made in the 60s, 70s, 80s, whenever.
Speaker 4:Still being made. Still being made, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that if you're new you wouldn't know necessarily because you would have no way of knowing. There are a few telltale signs, like where the horn connects is a very sharp point. That's usually a telltale sign and then a reproducer if it looks like it's got Christmas trees on it. For the most part that is not going to be a realistic or original phonograph, or at least the reproducer, if nothing else is fake. So don't be afraid to ask. Give yourself the extra 10, 20 minutes for somebody to respond, because they do respond quickly online. You don't necessarily have to say where you are because you don't want someone coming in and buying it, but get a couple of opinions and feedback before you jump in. And people are out there willing to help you and guide you in the right direction to get you into the collection and into the hobby.
Speaker 1:And online. I think it's fair to say, and certainly something my dad used to say if it's too good to be true, it usually isn't. That happens a lot online. It happens on Facebook, happens on Facebook Marketplace yes, have I gotten things off of Facebook marketplace? Yes, but I went to their houses or went to their offices and bought them. I bought a standard banner, green Oak. I'm just doing it again For a hundred bucks. A doctor in Long Island. He goes, it's in my office. I said I'll be right there and I drove over and the thing worked perfectly. I'd never done a thing to it. It did come with a reproduction horn.
Speaker 2:My first cylinder machine was in a wood shop and it was in that wood shop since 1900. And they used it and used it and then when it was obsolete, they put it in a corner and when the guy brought it to my house it had about a quarter inch of sawdust on it because it was literally put away and forgotten. And I it was a new thing learning curve. Here we are. I had to learn how to fix it. And there we go again with my dopamine as soon as I heard it play. It was a great feeling.
Speaker 1:Good stuff it's amazing, right, it's amazing how they are complicated machines but they're incredibly basic all at the same time and they're simplistic principles's. Pretty much. Edison's strength of all things is his ability to make simplistic things that change the world, even though he was a thief.
Speaker 2:But we'll go on that oh, we were just talking about that. Today. That seems to be the word amongst the young people. Now I'm on tiktok and I focus a lot on Edison stuff and I have these young kids they say, oh, he stole that, and I'll be like they didn't really steal it, he just made it marketable and functional. He commercialized things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he stole the movie from a famous French director.
Speaker 2:Oh, gaumont, I don't know the guy's name, yeah.
Speaker 1:He stole that and put Edison Productions under it and released it in america and made a fortune well beyond that. Who cares?
Speaker 1:yeah, listen he was an egomaniac, he was a cheat. By the way, my friend's father used to work for him. Yeah, he, he passed away. He probably died at 85 in 1978 or nine, and he worked for Edison as like a page at the when he was a young boy, at the I don't know if it was the factory or his house or whatever and he said he was the most demanding human being he ever met in his life, being he ever met in his life. He gave people he used to say he gave people a tremendous amount of freedom and demanded constant success.
Speaker 1:Yeah not necessarily success, but innovation is probably a better word.
Speaker 2:You demanded innovation. There was a story I told Joe today while walking around the historic site that he would hire people out of other departments. As an example, he might take someone out of the accounting department and put them in engineering. Why are you sending me to the engineering department? Because all the engineers, when I told them what I wanted done, they said it couldn't be done. You won't tell me that it can't be done, so it was just another way of thinking. He was a thinker. And here's one more example they were looking for new sounds, new types of music and this is a true story.
Speaker 2:New types of music and this is a true story. They recorded music backwards onto disc records and then they played them and they were looking for new beats and new things in music. I don't know if he felt that we've come to the end of our musical evolution, but that was an interesting experiment playing music backwards because he had the technology to do so and they did a lot of that Back then. They tried a lot of things. They would try something 10,000 times, 10,000 failures, and eventually they would get it right.
Speaker 1:You know the story about hip-hop, how it started in the Bronx. So these guys started in their basement. They would have like little parties and they wanted to have great beats. And they heard these albums from this German band called Kraftwerk. I don't know if you know who they are, no, no, they played electronic music that had these electronic beats to it and they heard these beats and they used the records on their machines and hand-manipulated them to change the beats, but they loved the beats of Kraftwerk. So this significant electronic German band becomes one of the founding movements in hip-hop, being created in the Bronx in somebody's basement. Basically these basement parties, and there are three original or four original guys that, if you look up, they're founders of rap and hip-hop. All come from these Hefwerk albums as the background of the beats they're out there.
Speaker 1:People hear. It's like every artist, right? You talk to Van Gogh. People wondered why he painted that way. He used to say I see, this is what I see. Artists see and hear and influence things in a different way than the rest of us, and that's what Britain must.
Speaker 2:Actually, I have nothing. It has nothing to do with his politics. He just I don't know. Okay, I think very quick and very slow at the same time. I think that he has such great self-interest that he's pushing upon the population, that he's pushing upon the population and he doesn't think outside of his own grandiose goals and what he wants to achieve. Yeah, he's done great things I like Starlink but at the same time, not everyone can afford an $80,000 to $140,000 electric car, and all those electric cars are powered by coal. There are multiple books written about his quirks and his personality, but it takes you talk a lot about what some people call pseudoscience and a lot of talk about Victor Schauberger, nikola Tesla, charles, proteus, steinmetz, edison and great advances always come from the fringe of the subject matter. It never comes from the center of studying. And yeah, I'm quirky, we're all a little quirky, but sometimes that's what it takes, and with Musk, that's what it takes.
Speaker 2:He's a quirky guy, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and he does that same thing. Like you said about Edison, he takes people. If he doesn't, I want you to think out of the box. And if he doesn't, he gets rid of him. He hires somebody else. He brings people in. He'll bring anyone, he doesn't care people in. Yeah, he'll bring anyone, he doesn't care. You want to think out of the box? You want to. I want you to think of something no one's thought of before. Apply things differently, look at it differently. I think that he is very into that, and so was that, and so was all these guys that were like that. Yeah, certainly tesla was like that oh yeah, eventually.
Speaker 2:I know someday I'm going to walk around the block three times before going into a building and I'll gain an affinity for collecting pigeons. I know it's going to happen, but yeah, that's what it takes.
Speaker 1:We covered a lot of ground tonight, I think. Yes, sir, and I think I hope we gave everyone a little bit of overview. Sunday we'll all be at I know both of you have tables at a phonograph show in Wayne, new Jersey. It's the PAL right.
Speaker 2:It's at the PAL, which is the Police Athletic League. It's One Pal Drive in Wayne, New Jersey. It's the mechanical music extravaganza. Anything old technology, music-related, record-related, it'll be there. There's a ginormous community of people that collect these and fix them, and it's our society and you will see the myriads of other things, paraphernalia that people collect, record duster they don't have a special name.
Speaker 1:Like everything else, people have massive collections of those things. People have mess, collections of needle tins. Yeah, yeah, there are so many things that people collect in this, or signs or ads. I have a bunch. I just bought three more.
Speaker 3:I don't know A nipper dog, all kinds of nippers.
Speaker 2:There's one lady. Her name is Joan Rolf. She actually wrote her and her husband, robin, wrote the book on antique phonograph, toys, right Toy phonographs and talking dolls. Actually, your listeners may not know this, but the first commercial application of the phonograph was the talking doll from Edison. It only existed for a very short period of time. It was a commercial failure, but it was the first commercially available talking machine.
Speaker 1:And it is the creepiest looking thing I've ever seen in my life. Amen Agreed. Yeah, ed has one. Do you ever see it? It's a living room.
Speaker 2:Oh I, he showed it to me. I don't. It's in the living room.
Speaker 3:It belongs in a closet. Yeah, it's in the attic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, halloween comes around, put that thing away so you can imagine how much we dislike them.
Speaker 1:If Edison collectors like us, who have all kinds of things from Edison, can't stand them.
Speaker 4:You might want to edit that part out as Ed hears this.
Speaker 3:Doll collectors would like them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, whenever I'm in an antique shop I always pick up the dolls and I look if they have metal bodies on them, because I recognize the face of an Edison doll, the porcelain head. And there's actually a French company called. Oh, what is it? Lioray? Lioray was a watch and clockmaker, a clockmaker, a horologist, and they made a talking doll called a bébé jumeau, and the bébé Jumeau would play a little celluloid record and it was more of a commercial success than the Edison talking doll. But still see in, just when you think about it, five, six years ago I worked on a talking oil can for the standard motor company. It was probably from the 1930s or 1940s. You push a button on the top and it played a little vinyl record inside of it. It was an advertisement for Standard Oil. There are phonographs and everything. Nissan. Nissan came out with a car in the early 1980s, the Nissan Stanza. It had or excuse me, the Maxima. It had a mechanical or no, it had a mechanical phonograph in it.
Speaker 2:When your door was open it would notify you with a voice. And it wasn't off of a microchip, it was off of a record. Yeah, or the what's the thing that we all had when we were real young where you turn the little arrow to an animal and it's like the dog goes or the cow goes, move, I figured what those were called.
Speaker 4:Pull the string.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it would talk. Phonographs were in many different things that didn't play music. Yeah, it's a cool hobby. Talking dolls are an entire subset. Yeah, oh, one little. You got me thinking, steve. Another little bit of Edison trivia for all the haters out there of Edison. Every time you answer your phone and you say hello, guess who invented that word? Edison? Because Alexander Graham Bell. If we went with his method of answering the phone, it would be ahoy oy, ahoy oy. And I don't know what Edison's reasoning was between hello I'm not making this up and people are like I wonder how did Edison come up with hello? Some people think it's like ahoy hell, no, hello, hello. Maybe that's how it came about, but he's credited. Maybe it's an urban legend, I don't know, but hello is credited to edison.
Speaker 2:well, other than like ever recorded was the first thing ever, I'm mary commercially oh yeah, that's, that's 1877 mr cruci made the first tinfoil phonograph to Edison's specifications and it worked.
Speaker 2:For the first try. It worked and he just recited Mary had a Little Lamb into it, Menlo Park Laboratory window, because the building just was falling apart and there was detritus everywhere. But I hold this piece of glass is only like an inch by an inch and a half, and I hold that piece of glass in my hand and I look at it and think Mary had a little lamb and the applause and the cheering and the excitement that happened in the Menlo Park Laboratory. This piece of glass was there and it vibrated with the excitement. And when they got the light bulb to work for more than several minutes that piece of glass was there and it just sets my imagination off in wild tangents, just imagining how it was back then. Gosh, I have a nail from Edison's childhood home in Port Huron.
Speaker 4:Huh, you took one today.
Speaker 2:No, no, I got it at the museum in Port Huron where he worked as a I think he was a telegraph operator. They sold nails. You could buy them in the gift store. His family lived in Port Huron for a short time. And what else is in my collection? I have some lick and stick return address labels from his youngest son, theodore, who also had a laboratory in West Orange, new Jersey, called Calabron LeBron. But it's my in my little event inventor drawer. I have all these little things. But, yeah, imagination and respect and, as you say you're, we're preserving history, the cultural instrument that is the phonograph.
Speaker 1:Really changed the world. He did let it sit for a while before he really concentrated on it. I know he was creating this stupid thing called the light bulb, but columbia.
Speaker 4:That dragged him back into it.
Speaker 2:I believe correct? Don't know, because I didn't spend enough time reading the books, the important books.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think you saw other people using it, other people, whether it was columbia or not, and he resented since he invented it and jumped back then.
Speaker 2:I'm thinking it was around 1888 when we had an explosion of applied creativity in the talking machine world and Edison's first commercial phonographs for commerce were actually used for office dictation and they weren't really intended to be used for entertainment, but some people were, because you could record your voice. Some people started recording music with them and playing the music back and he realized we could make some money with these things. There were several people at the time all vying to be top dogs. So, yeah, you had cylinder records, disc records, but the dictation machine was, I think, one of the earliest uses for these phonographs. And there was another company in Connecticut called Columbia and they had dictation machines too. They were just for office dictation and then people started using them for music. It's funny how that all happened. Anything else?
Speaker 1:guys, we'll leave it there for now. This is a good program thank you for inviting us.
Speaker 2:Pleasure, I hope.
Speaker 1:I would like hopefully that we could do some video, maybe in the future and hopefully maybe we can get guests on, people who want to show us their collection and we would talk about it and see it. So hopefully this is the first of many. These are going to be like side episodes on my regular podcast, because I already have everything working and it's already out there. I'm in 28 countries and 276 cities around the world.
Speaker 2:That is amazing.
Speaker 1:I don't know who these people are and I don't know why the hell they're listening to me, but there must be something about you they just love.
Speaker 2:We appreciate your show.
Speaker 1:Thank you again. Well, that concludes our interview with Wyatt, joe and Tracy. We're going to try to make this a supplemental podcast, obviously on audio and video from time to time. So if you're interested, you will get these supplementals, but our regular podcast will be out there and we'll be doing our regular interviews and conversations on many different topics. So for now, thank you all for listening. I look forward to your feedback and hopefully you will hear me and see me very soon.
