There had been a time when hobbyists were unaware that Lieutenant Gianni Bettini produced disc recordings, in addition to his cylinders. The late author William R. Moran, who had a long interest in the lieutenant’s recordings, may well have been the first to bring such a treasure to the attention of collectors. In a letter published in the November, 1953 issue of Hobbies magazine, he wrote: "Recently I got a Bettini disc! This is the first I have ever seen, and I wonder how many other collectors have such discs. It would be interesting to know what else was issued. The label is pale pink, and is flush. Written in ink is: Berti Tosca. In the smooth inner rim of the record appears the signature, G. Bettini 1229. The singer is obviously Romeo Berti of the Odean-Columbia and other label fame".

In France, Lieutenant Bettini was granted Patent No. 334,449 for a disc phonograph on August 6, 1903, and in early in 1904, his Parisian printers, Librairies et Imprimeries, of 7 Rue St. Benoit, published a thirty-seven page catalogue of Bettini discs. In July of that year, as his French phonograph business collapsed, Bettini placed an oddly capitalized, ungrammatical advertisement in The Talking Machine News and Cinematographic Chronicle, which indicated the extent to which his interest had switched from cylinders to discs. "The Disc Industry, as everyone knows, is to-day one of the most important businesses in the world...very large profits are guaranteed to any one which can produce disc records, and it would be of the highest value to all the manufacturers of disc machines to add to their special industry that of the Disc Records, the cost of manufacturing them being very small... After many months of hard study and work, I have completely mastered all these secret processes, and I guarantee to produce Records as good, and even better, than the best disc on the market at the present time. My name is already well known in connection with many important works and inventions relating to the talking machine business... I am willing to consider any proposition made to me to teach those interested all the details of how to make Disc Records...or I would under special conditions, accept an exclusive association with a Company or an individual giving satisfactory references." This advertisement, as well as an almost identically worded one, written in German and simultaneously placed in Phonographische Zeitschrift, resulted in no viable offers.

Counting variations in their sizes, it can be asserted that Gianni Bettini produced at least seven, and probably more, distinct types of disc records in a period of less than a year and a half from 1903 to mid-1904. There were five different diameters for the pink label discs: the smaller "Petits" came in six and seven eighths and six and thirteen sixteenths inches in diameter, and the "Grands" had widths of nine and three eighths, nine and three sixteenths, and nine and five sixteenths of an inch. The Berti Tosca recording was the largest sized Grand. Moran described a second Bettini disc he became aware of: Chien et Chat by Madame Polaire (actress-singer Emilie Marie Bouchar), in his encyclopaedic compilation of surviving Bettiniana which appeared in the September, 1965 Record Collector, under the title, The Legacy of Gianni Bettini. He believed that the record, which was a mid-sized Grand, was in poor playing condition, although he had not actually heard it. Since 1965, other pink label Bettini discs have been found, bringing the known total owned by a fortunate few to approximately a dozen. These have changed hands many times, commanding ever-increasing prices and they can now be found in collections in the United States, Canada, France, Argentina and quite possibly elsewhere.

Moran’s 1965 Record Collector discussion of the Bettini pink label recordings is well-worth repeating at this point: "Mention has been made of the disc recordings produced by Bettini. They bear pink lithographed labels, three and a half inches in diameter, with a 2-inch pink center clear of printing. Around the rim, beginning at 6 o’clock, is a blank framed box, one and a half inches long and one half an inch high, which would appear to be intended for a number. From 7 to 12 o’clock is the lettering ‘Ste des Phonographes Bettini, Paris.’ On the opposite side, from 5 to 12 o’clock, a neoclassical female draped in flowing robes leans backwards around the curve of the center ring, holding a harp above her head in a truly back-breaking pose. The record material is black. The back of each record is blank except for the embossed words Made in England. Both records are announced, and both have the artist’s name written on the label in ink, above the spindle hole, with the title of the selection handwritten below. In each case, to read the writing, the discs must be given a quarter turn to the left. The surface of the two recordings have relief-map-like splotches which look like imperfections in the original wax."

I had once theorized that the National Phonograph Company, of 25 Clerkenwall, London, which Bettini’s French firm owed l102.20 francs when it failed in 1904, was the probable manufacturer of his discs. However, more recent data has indicated that he originally negotiated with the Nicole Freres, Ltd, of 21 Ely Place, Holborn, London, for their production. But when the talks bogged down, the lieutenant turned to the Crystalate Manufacturing Co., Tonbridge, Kent, Page 4 Great Britain to do the pressings. One of the owners of Crystalate was George Burt, who had patented a disc manufacturing process, but I do not know the extent of his contacts with Lieutenant Bettini. Whether it was Crystalate, Librairies et Primeries, or another source that provided the labels remains unknown, but it seems more likely that the same Paris company which published his catalogues would have lithographed Bettini’s labels.

Presumably, Crystalate also made the blanks for the non-pink label Bettini discs, and there were three types of them. These included his test pressing records and his separate discs for the two recordings of Pope Leo XIII. The former label was uncharacteristically plain, with black lettering saying Societe Bettini on the upper periphery. The address of the lieutenant’s studio appeared in smaller print, followed by three lines that were used to write the identification of the selection and recording artist. An additional narrower line was placed to the right of a "No_" in order to permit the matrix number to be assigned. I know of two Bettini test-pressing records that are extant, one of which is owned by a collector in Buenos Aires. During Gianni Bettini’s papal audience of February 5, 1903, Pope Leo XIII initially gave a Latin recitation of his Benediction into the recording horn. But when the cylinder was played back, at the pontiff’s request, his words were indistinct and there was general disappointment. A second attempt was made with Pope Leo this time chanting the Ave Maria and Bettini later told a reporter: "when, after reciting the Ave Maria, His Holiness heard his voice ring out clear and vibrant from the machine, he expressed his satisfaction in the warmest tones, exclaiming: Good, very good! And now let us have the Benediction again. I set the machine going and this time, as we know, with complete success. In the months that followed, Bettini duplicated these two recordings in cylinder format and marketed them in collaborative arrangement with the Paris edition of Le Figaro and through additional advertisements in La Vie Populaire. But in 1904, as his interest in cylinders waned, Lieutenant Bettini issued them as separate discs, for which he published a beautiful eight page papal disc brochure. Bettini sold the distribution rights for the papal recordings to the Columbia Phonograph Company, which distributed them as cylinders, beginning in February of 1905.

I am aware of two existing vintage Bettini discs of Pope Leo’s Benediction, the elaborate label which is illustrated and lettered in dark pink-to-red on a light pink background. They are owned by collectors in the United States, but only one has the actual label. The intact label reproduces a painting on the fifth page of Bettini’s papal brochure, depicting the pontiff amidst a crowd celebrating his Jubilee. The Rodgers and Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, of the New York Public Library’s Lincoln Center Branch, has a tape of this recording, but I do not know the source it was made from.

Unfortunately, I do not know of any surviving Bettini discs of the pontiff reciting the Ave Maria, although a number of the cylinders survive as either the original Societe des Micro-Phonographes Bettini white cylinder issue of 1903 or the Columbia cylinder reissue of 1905. However, each of the Bettini papal titles was transferred from the Columbia cylinders to separate, ten-inch, 78 rpm test pressing discs at the U.S. Library of Congress in 1969. They are without labels, instead having data handwritten on the matrices, and the Library’s Recorded Sound Section still has them. Also a plus for Bettini collectors is that Opal, a British firm, included the Pope Leo XIII Ave Maria recitation on its CD 9823, Alessandro Moreschi, The Complete Recordings, which was first released in 1984. This Opal CD can be heard online via the Amazon Records Website, which sells it. Around the year 2002, Christian Zwarg’s Berlin-based company, Truesound Transfers, issued it along with thirty other Bettini cylinders, on its CD 1901, which is currently available.

Of the assorted discs Bettini produced during an all too brief time span, it seems likely that additional specimens of his papal recordings hold the most promise of coming to our attention. Surely some of them must have been saved as treasured religious heirlooms, passed down from generation to generation, and preserved in households unfamiliar with the lieutenant’s full phonograph legacy. But despite that hopeful thought, one can only mourn the fact that his July, 1904 broadsides failed to keep him in the emerging disc industry. That this colorful, pioneering, resourceful, and brilliant personality then decided to pursue other endeavors remains a definite loss to all who are fascinated by the history of recorded sound.

Edison with the Perfected Phonograph from The Illustrated London News, July 20, 1888

Edison staged a press conference at his enormous new laboratory in Orange, N.J., on May 11, 1888, to show reporters some "astounding experiments on his improved (battery-operated) phonograph" (NYT May 12, p. 8). This improvement was propelled by the work of Bell and Tainter, who devised wax-covered cardboard cylinders to supercede Edison’s fragile tin-foil sheets for recording and playback. Edison had now come up with a much better and more durable medium, hollow white or yellow paraffine wax cylinders. A new factory was to be started the next week and the machines and cylinders would be on the market within a month. The next day, Edison and Prof. R.T. Gilliland brought a dozen little phonographs to the Electric Club, New York, where they recorded Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman and others speaking, preaching and telling jokes and stories (NYT May 13, p. 5). A few weeks later, Edison sent a further improved version of the phonograph overseas to Col. George E. Gouraud, his agent in London. He also promised to send his Perfected machines to all the crowned heads of Europe (TG July 2, p. 6). In July, there were reports that Edison would soon be receiving phonograms from Gouraud, inscribed with the voices of ex-P.M. William Ewart Gladstone, the Rt. Hon. Arthur James Balfour and the great diva Adelina Patti (NYT July 10, p. 4). It was astounding to the world that, by means of a peculiar little machine the size of a Remington typewriter or a sewing machine lid, these treasured voices could be heard more than 3,000 miles from where the words were spoken and sung. The paraffine wax cylinders could be listened to over and over again and could be played on any other like machine anywhere in the world! Gouraud and Edison were going to correspond across the Atlantic by means of mailed phonograms, and would exchange spoken and musical "records" (LT June 27, p. 12). At this point, Edison was talking about being able to reproduce recordings in any number - a premature prediction, because the Gold Molding process was years in the future - and The Times observed, "The power of fixing and reproducing human speech will form an era in the history of civilization" (LT June 30, p. 5). Excitement about Edison’s improved phonograph rose to a high pitch around the world that spring.

How the Perfected Phonograph Came to Toronto

On July 31, 1888, H.J. Hill, the Manager and Secretary of the T.I.E., wrote to Edison’s private secretary (the letterhead reads only "Canada’s Great Industrial Fair & Agricultural Exposition") saying that Mr. Edison had consented to exhibiting his new Perfected Phonograph at the Buffalo Fair in September and that Mr. Robinson, Manager of the Buffalo Fair, had advised him to write to Mr. Edison to enquire whether the machine and the person in charge of it might be sent to Toronto at the close of the Buffalo Fair for exhibition here (RUEP Letters of A.O. Tate, D8847, file series 1888, TAEM 124.175). It seems, however, that the Edison machine was not shown in Buffalo. Some Toronto gentlemen went there expressly to see Edison’s phonograph and were disappointed to find "the Tainter phonograph being used as a substitute" (TG Sept. 7, p. 1). About that time, the T.I.E. was informed that it would not be possible to supply a Perfected Phonograph as not enough machines had been manufactured, whereupon Mr. John J. Withrow, President of the Board of the T.I.E., prevailed upon his old and influential friend, Mr. Erastus Wiman of New York, to see what he could do for them. Wiman managed to secure not only a phonograph but "an expert electrician to manage the instrument" (TG Sept. 3, p. 6).

Mr. Erastus Wiman

Wiman was well known to Edison. There are over 80 letters in the Edison papers to, from and about Erastus Wiman. One of these, a letter from G.P. Lathrop to Edison’s private secretary, Alfred Ord Tate, is about Wiman’s wanting to lease "Amusement Phono" for exhibition on a profit-sharing basis. Failing this, Wiman might deal with the Tainter group, "grab the field.....injure Edison.... and the Ed. Phono Co." Edison would be "throwing away a business which might bring in from $1000 to $5000 cash per week" (RUEP Tate Letters, June 27, 1888, D 8848 ACM; TACM 124.371). This lease was likely how Wiman had access to a spare phonograph for the T.I.E., while Edison did not. Wiman added a bonus to his gift: "Before the phonograph leaves New York, Mr. Wiman has consented to make a speech into the machine, and on Opening Day (Tuesday, Sept. 11th), the phonograph will repeat this address to the audience" (TG Sept. 3, p. 6; ET Sept. 3, p. 4).

A memo exists from Tate to Edison asking who was going to be sent to New York on September 6, 1888, "to Lippincott.....to be present when Mr. Wiman is making his phonograms?" Edison replied that he would send over Miller and ½ dozen new "phon’s" (RUEP Tate letters, Sept. 5, 1888, D 8848 ADM, TAEM 124.406). This is likely the occasion when Mr. Wiman spoke his addresses for the T.I.E. into the phonograph, possibly supervised by Jesse H. Lippincott, recently elected President of the North American Phonograph Company.

Two days after the recording session, one Toronto newspaper reported that the Edison Perfected Phonograph had been "shipped from New York and will be on hand for the opening" of the T.I.E. (ET Sept. 8, p. 3), and another that it had already reached Toronto (TEN Sept. 8, p. 7). The machine would be under the charge of Mr. George H. Dunham, who was an Edison agent employed at Orange, N.J. (RUEP Edison to C.S. Folley, Oct. 1, 1888, D 8818 AUD; TABM 122.588). At least four demonstration wax cylinders arrived with it from New York (TW Sept. 13, p.1; TG Sept. 13, p. 4), each containing a short speech by Erastus Wiman. These recordings may have a pivotal role in the question of the timing of Lord Stanley’s famous recorded message. Note that the four cylinders of Wiman’s voice which came to Toronto in 1888 with the Perfected Phonograph had to have been of white or yellow paraffine wax, because the improved brown wax was not introduced until after March 1889.

Erastus Wiman and Free Trade with the United States

Mr. Erastus Wiman (born: Churchville, Toronto Township [Peel County] Upper Canada, April 21, 1834 - died: Staten Island, N.Y., February 9, 1904), a wealthy Canadian expatriate businessman, promoter and author, was an untiring advocate of Commercial Union (reciprocity or free trade) with the U.S.A. Just at this time, negotiations for a fisheries treaty had failed, even though the United States was getting 90% of its demands. President Cleveland was stalling about indicating whether he would run again for President, and was making noises about requiring free trade of Canada. There were other U.S. voices calling for the opening up of Canada for free trade, talk of annexation of Canada and perhaps of war. That week the House of Representatives determined to play hardball and passed a Retaliation Bill against Canada, the Mills Bill, which would have raised tariffs enormously and slashed trade between the two countries. (The Mills Bill was defeated in the Senate, but the harsh McKinley Tariff Act was passed in 1890. 67% of Canadian trade had been with the U.S. By 1893 it was down to 16%, and trade with Britain had increased from 33% to 84%.) In September 1888, feelings against the United States and its flag, against any talk of free trade and against Mr. Wiman, were running high in Canada An editorial, pointing to the Americans disparaging Canada and desiring to chop off Canadian railroads at the border, insisted that Manager Hill take down the American flag over the western entrance to the T.I.E., because the Americans would never tolerate a British flag at the Buffalo Fair (TEN Sept. 12, p. 2).

His Worship Mayor Edward Frederick Clarke, M.P.P. (Liberal-Conservative), an honest and efficient administrator, printer-turned-owner of The Sentinel, Deputy Grand Master of the Orange Order in British America, United Workmen, Freemason and Loyal Orange.

Toronto’s Tory Mayor, Edward Frederick Clarke (1850-1905), was very upset at the prospect of Wiman’s spouting his free trade propaganda by phonograph at the fair and wrote to Manager Hill, hoping "there will be no political matter of any kind in the speech, as, if there were, it might cause division and mar the success" of the fair. The letter somehow got out and the New York press reported Clarke warning Wiman "not to inflict his views on Commercial Union upon the Canadian public through the medium of Edison’s phonograph" (TDN Sept.10, p. 4). One paper said that Wiman had been invited to speak about free trade on Farmers’ Day, that the Board had turned it down and someone suggested he speak strong words about free trade into the phonograph (NYT Sept. 9, p. 1). Subsequently, a letter and an editorial reaction appeared together under "The Muzzled Phonograph". The editor wondered what flat blasphemies Wiman’s speech might contain, and opined that farmers would welcome free trade and that the ruling party must be in a bad way to think the phonograph message politically offensive (TG Sept. 11, p. 4). The Empire supported Clarke: "This is obviously the right course to adopt, for party politics should not be allowed to bring discord into the proceedings. From the outcry that some Grits are raising over this sensible restriction, there is, however, room for suspicion that they had contrived a little plot to disseminate their partisan views in this unjustifiable manner" (E Sept. 12, p. 4). The ET regretted that the Mayor had raised a groundless alarm over the scientific toy to "silence an exiled and commercially erring son", that Clarke was injudicious to have expressed this in an official note and that the whole thing had been grossly exaggerated by the press (ET Sept. 11, p.2). This critical editorial is actually part of a continuing ET campaign against Clarke, and explains why that paper published an uncorroborated report next day, cited below, that Wiman’s speech had been played at the opening ceremony, immediately after Lord Stanley had declared the T.I.E. officially open (ET Sept. 11, p. 4).

Attractions at the T.I.E. in 1888

Hill had amassed a stupendous collection of amusements and commercial exhibits for the 10th annual T.I.E. Among them were the Prof. Burton’s (or Morse’s) Wonderful $10,000 Dog, Cat and Monkey Circus, speeding in the Horse Ring of the grand stand, Herr Weitzmann (or M. Zantretta) on the high rope, Prof. Hartt’s Viennese Lady Fencers, M. Valjean’s juggling, Mr. Williams’ balloon ascensions and 3000-foot parachute drops, the female International Bicycle Contest, a fishery exhibit, Morris’ Temple of Mysteries and Automatical Wonders, concerts by Prof. Toulmin’s Exhibition Band, the "C" Company Band, the Massey Band and Archduke Joseph’s Hungarian Gypsy Band, organ and piano recitals in the Main Building, Prof. F.A. Thomas’ national dances of the world and tableaux by 16 pretty little girls in costume, the Zoological Garden, the Machinery Building, Fruit and Flower Building, provincial exhibits, Fine Art Gallery, and the daily pyrotechnical display of the Siege of Sebastopol. Edison’s phonograph was not included in the early announcements in the newspapers (E Sept. 8, p. 4). The Canadian National Exhibition Archives, however, has original copies of the little "Program for Canada’s Great International Fair and Exhibition", undated, containing a late notice: "Many other attractions are still being negotiated for, including Munkacsy’s great $100,000 picture 'Christ Before Pilate' and Edison’s latest and most wonderful invention, the Perfected Phonograph" (Acc. #94 03, p. 12, C.N.E. Archives).

Lord Stanley’s Itinerary in Toronto

Queen's Hotel

Lord Frederick Arthur Stanley, sworn in as Governor General of Canada, June 11, 1888, made his first visit to Toronto from September 10 to 12, 1888, and performed one of his first Vice-regal acts by opening Toronto’s great fair. Mayor Clarke officially informed the Industrial Exhibition Association on July 10 that "there was very little doubt but that Lord Stanley the new Governor General would open the Exhibition" (Minute Book, Industrial Exhibition Association of Toronto, p. 286, C.N.E. Archives).

Lord Stanley’s party arrived at the old Union Station by C.P.R. at 8:40 a.m., Monday the 10th, in the Government car "Cumberland". Accompanied by the Mayor and the City Council’s Reception Committee, they drove through streets of cheering crowds to the Queen’s Hotel, where the "Red Parlor" was set aside for his suite (E Sept. 10, p. 3). From 2:30 to about 6 p.m., Lord Stanley received delegations and listened and responded to formal addresses by the Synod of the Toronto Diocese, St. George’s Society and the Toronto Conference of the Methodist Church, then off to the Board of Trade Building, back to receive the Sons of England, the Army and Navy Veterans and the St. Andrews Society. The ET decried the farce of these tedious recitals of esteem and illuminated platitudes, suggesting that Lord Stanley might prefer working in a quarry (ET Sept. 8, p. 4). At 8 p.m., he was escorted in a torchlight procession by mounted police, the fire brigade, Heintzman’s Band, the Sons of England Mounted Corps and various patriotic societies along York, King, Yonge and Gerrard Streets to the Horticultural Pavilion in Allan Gardens where a grand reception was staged. Later, back at the Queen’s, His Excellency hosted a supper for the Civic Reception Committee.

The Pavilion in Allan Gardens

Bibliographic Key: All newspapers cited are from 1888, unless otherwise noted.

E = The Empire, Toronto
ET = Toronto Evening Telegram
FTFTS = "From Tin Foil to Stereo" - Oliver Read and Walter L. Welch, H.W. Sams & Co., Indianapolis, 2nd edition, 1976
HS = Hamilton Spectator
LT = The Times, London
NYT = New York Times
OC = Ottawa Citizen
RUEP = Rutgers University Edison Papers
TDM = Toronto Daily/Evening Mail
TDN / TEN = Toronto Daily/Evening News
TG = Toronto Globe
TW = The World, Toronto

For years, collectors have had a wealth of books that addressed various aspects of our hobby, in one manner or the other. However, there was always a huge gap when it came to the largely ignored history of the Canadian Berliner operations. The information available was often scattered and sporadic, but at long last this has been nicely covered by Mark’s recent book. I’ve long regarded him as the "Berliner Expert", and his in-depth research for this project clearly puts him in this category.

The 71-page 8 ½ by 11 inch glossy volume takes us from the dawn of recorded sound, and then traces the step by step growth and setbacks that Emile Berliner endured to make the flat disk process the industry standard that it became. This book is richly documented with original period photos from the Library of Congress and Archives Canada, many of which show us the actual manufacturing plants, stores, laboratories and recording studios. The beautiful colour photos of surviving examples and advertising memorabilia are very sharply and professionally reproduced. Detailed close-ups are used to emphasis important characteristics of each model.

What surprised me the most was the sheer number of varying and obscure gramophones that Berliner produced over the company’s history. Variations in the same unit designations are also documented, with the differences being highlighted. Essentially, there is an example of every model that was made available to the public in both American and Canadian versions. This in itself is quite a feat, which has never been previously addressed in any written work. Add to this a clear, straightforward account of the legal battles, and Berliner family squabbles, and you’ve got a first-class production. The source for most of the modern-day photos come from the amazing 500 + talking machine collection of Domenic DiBernardo, one of the largest collections in the world. In fact, the book is published by Domenic and part of his fascinating collection is shown toward the end of the book. The result is a made in Canada effort, equal to the best that has been produced abroad. Whether you want to date and identify that Berliner in your collection, or just learn about an amazing chapter in phonograph history, this book is highly recommended and guaranteed not to disappoint.