u/irish_Connolly_Barry

So on June 30 George gouraud Edison’s London agent George Gouraud was born. He was born in niagra falls in New York to Francois Gouraud a Frenchman who promoted the daguerreotype in America. Gouraud was orphaned as a small boy when his father died in 1847. and his mother not long after. And from my other posts you know the back story already on what he did so i will write about what he did after. So by August 1888 on August 14 he recorded with 2 unknown musicians to record Arthur Sullivans lost chord and then introduced that and the Crystal Palace ones to the London press. On October 5th of 1888 gouraud held the biggest phonograph party at his house called little Menlo in Upper Norwood. Guests there included Arthur Sullivan,Alexander broadley,Joseph Parkinson,Edmund Yates plus others. He recorded the introduction, a toast to Edmund Yates,Arthur Sullivan’s message to Edison,broadley and Parkinson rambling about the night and stuff. Parkinson got cut out mid sentence due to the cylinder not having enough room because broadly took to long. By the end of the night everyone drank a full bottle of wine so when Sullivan was recorded the 2 were able to act sober but by the final recording with broadley and Parkinson they were all wasted. On November 2 1888 gouraud introduced the phonograph to more elite people at queen ann’s and made some recordings and it wasn’t as important as little Menlo. On December 18th he recorded William Gladstone the former prime minister of Britain which Gladstone’s voice was permanently damaged due to years of shouting at parliament so his voice came out faint on the recording but still hearable. On December the 21st he made his Christmas greeting to Edison the oldest one around. He dispatched them all soon afterwards and arrived not long after new years. In 1889 he recorded Robert browning the poet and he recited when they brought the good news from Ghent to aix and Robert forgot most of the words. He died the next December and on his 1 year anniversary it was the record was
Played and it was the first time a dead person’s
Voice spoke back. During this year he expanded operations a lot and set up an office and hired phonographers including Mary Helen Ferguson and Graham hope. In 1890 Ferguson recorded Florence nightingale and Martin lanfried a trumpeter and it was for a charity event for the veterans of the Crimean war I think. Lord Tennyson was recorded but the cylinder was damaged by mould and I think possibly the grooves slightly melted and deformed so the audio is poor and all thanks to his grandson storing it next to a radiator.
Anyway during the early 90s Edison got fed up with gouraud because gouraud had done little to sell phonographs and was obsessed with recording celebrities which Edison fired Gouraud very sadly. But Gouraud still had rights to the phonograph in England so he couldn’t be stopped fully. But by 1892 he was forced out but he still held shares with Edison which shows he still loved the phonograph. So in 1898 he left little Menlo for Brighton and in 1900 he developed the gouraudophone which amplified sound and was shown off at the Paris exposition that year. In his last years he lived between France and Switzerland which he lost his wife in 1907 and his son Jackson died in 1910 which deeply hurt gouraud the 2 deaths in a not long time frame and in 1909 he was bankrupt as he lost most
Of his fortune and he married a Norwegian woman in Lausanne Switzerland to have a companion. he resigned in a boarding house in 1911 near lassaune and on February 10th 1912 his son Bayard died after he was coming home from Indian as a British soldier. Gouraud died of heart failure on feb 17 at 69.

So on june the 29th 1888 in Crystal Palace London at 2pm colonel George gouraud brought the new perfected phonograph to attempt to record the Handel festival choir in Crystal Palace. He went up on the press gallery balcony overlooking the whole building and recorded the earliest surviving cylinder of Handel Israel in Egypt a choir and orchestra performance.
The recording came out well but now thanks to mould it makes it seem faint but originally would have sounded loud and booming. The conductor was sir august manns and the choir is over 4000 singers.

The photo I put is the London news and they wrote about the event so you can see that illustration is what it would have looked like.

So this is an Edison bell record called there ain’t another daddy in the world like mine sung by Albert Pearce. It has a small bit of mould which you can hear a bit of a crunch in the playing and internal mould which has all died off. I think this is very rare to have today let me know if it is

So on June 16 1888 at 5 am Edison got the perfected phonograph done and Edison and his team
Stayed up for 72 hours to make it and they got it done on June 16

So this is an indestructible cylinder record placed on my Edison standard and the record is in decent condition and k thought I would share and I bought it off John sleep in Cornwall

This is my sterling I believe sterling 106 and it is called a mill in the forest and it has no mould and good grooves. But there is a small hairline crack at the end but it doesn’t matter and tell me if this is rare because I think sterling’s like Edison bell’s, Americans go mad for them. So enjoy

This is the glory song Edison bell in not bad condition but has some spiderweb looking dead mould it’s thin mould nothing to worry about because it’s thin and dead

So this is my gold moulded cylinder the fairest of the fair march played by the New York military band on my standard

So I got a reproducer off of John sleep in Cornwall to play my cylinders because my other one limit loop snapped and I got the package today luckily and I played all my records and I am satisfied so enjoy this rare cylinder

I took the lids off the boxes that had the wrong lids so you could see the cylinder names the front row some have mould and some are perfectly clean and non are destroyed from mould

So she is I think as good as she will get and I have purchased a second reproducer off of John sleep gramophones a model c should be here by Monday or Tuesday my guess and also a leather belt in case so uh just tell me if she sounds ok

So Freddy yesterday was stalling and suffering from drag so I drowned her feedscrew in oil then de gunked it which there was some black gunk left from the first time but I got more out. Then I oiled with sewing machine oil the gears that connect the mandrel to the feedscrew and that sort of worked de gunking Barely did anything. So today I decided to change her belt to see if that was the problem. And it worked better and the old one I thought was fine because it wasn’t wet but I changed it for a stiffer one the seller sent me originally and she works better with less drag now

So one in my lot has no name and my model c should be posted today or tomorrow from Keith Badman and this record has a jagged crack and I want to

Know if playing is possible