Victor Phonographs
No name is more associated with early phonographs than the Victor Talking Machine Company. Indeed many people casually refer to any old phonograph, especially if has a horn, as a "Victrola." The image of the dog peering quizzically into a Victor phonograph above the slogan, "His Masters Voice" is among the most familiar in the world.The Victor company was founded by Eldridge Johnson in 1901 and rapidly became a major player in the phonograph market. At first the company produced phonographs with external horns, as did its competitors, but around 1905 it experimented with folding the horn downward into a large cabinet with the horn opening below the turntable. This internal horn phonograph was dubbed the Victrola--ironic, given that people now think of Victrolas as being the ones with the big external horns.
By 1910 the Victor company was selling large numbers of phonographs. Around then its engineers began a series of improvements to the basic phonograph while at the same time the company was meeting success with lower-priced models suitable for the average family. Sales rose to hundreds of thousands of units annually.
The company introduced the first electric motor option on its Victrolas in 1913; these were called Electrolas. Otherwise the basic model lineup remained fairly stable into the 1920s, when several new and radically redesigned phonographs were produced.
By the mid-1920s all phonograph producers were suffering from competition from radio. The Victor company responded with such innovations as the Orthophonic Victrola, which used new sound technology for superior sound reproduction. It also offered combination electronic radio-phonographs.
The Victor Talking Machine Company was bought by RCA in 1929 -- just in time for the Depression to knock the bottom out of the market for phonographs and other non-essentials. By the late 1930s, though, RCA Victor was again enjoying significant sales of its phonographs.
Today, vintage Victor phonographs are considered to be the finest machines a collector could own.
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