Edison electric coin-operated phonograph
This article is part of the ANTIQUE PHONOGRAPH, GRAMOPHONE AND TALKING MACHINE IDENTIFICATION GUIDES.
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The coin-operated cylinder phonograph, or nickel-in-the-slot machine as it was known in the trade, dates to the early years of the phonograph industry. A coin-operated Bell-Tainter machine had been exhibited at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, and a few such machines had been tested in the Chicago area. In 1889 and 1890, during the Consolidated Era, entrepreneurs representing the regional phonograph companies introduced working coin-operated phonographs in New York and California. The nickel-in-the-slot machines proved quite successful, earning hundreds of dollars per month, and generated a market in new record titles as the phonograph came to be seen not just as a novelty or an aid to business, but as a medium of entertainment. The identification of early coin-ops can be difficult, as cabinets could be manufactured by independent or regional companies and then fitted with Edison works.
By November 1889 Edison was advertising a machine known as the Edison coin-slot M, which evolved into a genus of coin-operated electrical phonographs. These machines employed a Class M upperworks, advanced by an electric motor. By 1906 there were at least three similar models: the Windsor, running off battery current; the Eclipse, running off direct current; and the Acme, running off alternating current. These machines were relatively expensive, the Windsor, for example, costing as much as $80 in 1904, although the proprietor of a business would more often lease the machine than purchase it. There was also a series of spring motor Edison coin-ops.
The machine depicted here bears some similarities to a Windsor, but there are enough differences to distinguish it, so that it can only be marked as an unidentified coin-operated machine. A similar unidentified Edison Class M automatic appears in Frow's Edison Cylinder Phonograph Companion.
 Lyre design on the door, and the oversize marquis, are typical of Edison coin-op design. These machines could have been equipped with either listening tubes or a horn. The rounded rather than square glass lid would lead to a guess that this machine was manufactured between 1900 and 1905.Orlando Antique Phonograph Show, Courtesy Richard Brown Larger image |
 Details of the inside with the door unlocked. Larger image |
 The return mechanism was based on the repeater that appears on the Edison Triumph. The metal tubing between the reproducer and horn is not original -- the original would have been rubber. Larger image |
