The Berliner JT Mystery
by Mike Bryan
Berliner JT Note the absence of shield pin holes
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After being legally prevented from selling his
"Gramophones" in the United States, Emile Berliner
established manufacturing facilities and a retail store
in Montreal. He launched his Canadian business in
1900 with a catalogue of 7"
Montreal-made Berliner records
and the Model A gramophone,
an almost identical version of
his "Improved Gramophone",
known more commonly as the
Berliner "Trademark" model
that he'd been selling in the
USA since 1897. There's no
reason to question the Montreal
production of the records, but
it's known that in the early days,
some of the gramophone parts
such as the motor and the
Johnson soundbox were
imported from Eldridge Johnson
in Camden, NJ. Since the
Trademark was the first and
highest selling Canadian
Berliner model, it has been
possible to track the minor
changes in the gramophone's
features that took place during
its life, such as the soundbox,
the traveling arm and the
modifications to accommodate
10" records. Tracking the
introduction and subsequent
modifications/variations of
other Berliner models presents
a far greater challenge.
Nonetheless, Mark Caruana-Dingli has faced up to that task
and succeeded in assembling a
comprehensive collection of
photographs with useful
commentary in his book The
Berliner Gramophone: An
Illustrated History.
1904 Berliner ad which includes the JT
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As well as detailing Berliner's
invention and development of
the gramophone and disc
record, the book includes all the
known Canadian Berliner models that joined or
followed the Trademark after it was eventually discontinued, maybe at the time of the move to the new
factory in 1906, if not before. In some cases, there are
early and late versions and / or front-mount and rear-mount versions of the same model. The model names
followed the pattern begun by the Model A
(Trademark), with B, C, D, E, F,
G, H, J, K, L, P and R, sometimes adding an actual name
such as "Ideal" for the B,
"Grand" for the C and "Bijou" for
the E. The lack of models I and
O may be due to their potential
confusion with 1 and 0, and Q
might have been avoided
because of the popular
Columbia Q. The writer is not
aware of any M or N models
that are absent from the
alphabetical sequence, but is
aware of a recently discovered
Canadian Berliner child's hand-wind gramophone. The ID plate
of some versions of some
models includes the letter T,
e.g. FT, GT, HT, JT, KT and LT.
The T is thought to indicate that
the gramophone was built and
sold as a rear-mount only model
or as the rear-mount version of
a model first sold as a front-mount. However, there are
more than a few examples of
rear-mount Berliners with just
the single letter, e.g. K. Since
Emile Berliner was a major
shareholder in the Victor
Talking Machine Company, he
need not have feared patent
challenges when he used or
made close copies of Victor
parts, technology and gramophone style, so the similarities
between American Victor
models and Canadian Berliners
are not surprising. It's the
differences that are more
interesting. The purpose of this
article is not an attempt to
detail them all, but to focus on
one particular model, the Berliner J.
The reason for focusing on the Berliner J is to report a
recent discovery and tell the story behind it. The first
known version of this model is rear-mount with a
rather plain case, a 10" turntable and black tin panel,
or optional oak-grained fibre horn. This was followed by
another version, a front-mount, but with pre-drilled
holes for a back bracket. The case of the second
version is unusually
ornate, with moulded
decorations in the style
of European models
such as the HMV
Monarch #9 made for
the French market. The
Berliner J has been
found with the strange
cantilever tone-arm as
well as the usual Victor-style tapered tone-arm.
A few years ago I
received a call from
someone who had
bought a gramophone
at a Toronto market in
the late 1960's. He was
not a collector and was
not able to tell me much
about it, so I asked him
to send me some
photographs, one of
which showed a Berliner
shield-style ID plate with
the serial # P496. The
other photos showed it
to be a large gramophone with an imposing
Berliner black tin panel
horn and a 12" turntable.
Clearly it was not a Berliner P, but what was it? It was
certainly interesting and attractive, so I bought it, but
not before trying to identify it through collector friends
and by researching Canadian Berliner models in books
and on the internet. None of these sources identified
it, so I just had to live with my mystery Berliner, not
knowing what it was. It measured 15.75" square and
its horn was 24" diameter x 26" long, so all I knew was
that it was a big machine and definitely a Berliner. The
last patent date on the horn, which was clearly original,
was October 9, 1906. The closest Victor model in
terms of size, proportions and its three-spring motor
would be the Victor V type A, introduced at the end of
1909 – around the time when Berliner stopped
making gramophones and continued selling only Victor
machines.
Berliner JT horn connection with patent information
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Berliner JT horn decal
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I continued to live in a state of ignorance for a couple
of years, until one day I saw a "for sale" ad for a
Berliner JT. I was aware of the Berliner J, as per the
two versions shown in the aforementioned book, so I
assumed that this would be one of these, but with the
T on the ID plate suggesting the rear-mount version.
Again, I requested photos and was both astonished
and delighted to see that
case was identical to that
of my mystery Berliner and
that it was indeed a rear-mount version. So without
further ado I acquired the
gramophone, complete
with its rectangular ID
plate showing the serial #
JT1105. The only differences between this and
my mystery Berliner, were:
- The JT-badged model had an oak-grained fibre horn and the other, a black panel horn
- The JT-badged model had a cantilever tone-arm and the other a tapered tone-arm
- The JT-badged model had a threaded crank and the other a slotted one
Canadian Berliner JT gramophone
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Out of curiosity, I gently
pried the incorrect shield-style three-pin P496 ID
plate from the case of my
first example, wondering if
I would find four corner pin
holes from an original
rectangular plate, but
there were none. So my mystery Berliner, now identified as a JT, had never borne a rectangular ID plate. I
doubted there ever had been a correct JT shield-style
ID plate on it, and that it would have been removed
and replaced it with a similar plate from a completely
different model. So I suspect it left the factory with no
ID plate at all.
Now I had two examples of this previously unknown
style Berliner JT, a gramophone that would seem to be
the largest model in the Berliner range. This leads me
to wonder if there are other models that have never
been documented and that would fill the gaps in the
alphabetical sequence.
As noted above, a T following the alphabetical model
name usually identifies the Berliner gramophone as quite different from the front-
mount G.
The shield ID plate appears to
have been superseded by the
rectangular ID plate by around the
time of the G, but then it reappears on higher letter models that
might be presumed as later. However, the term "later" may be
meaningless, because the
introduction and end dates of
each model and the numbers
produced can only be guessed.
The absence of Berliner Gramophone Company documentation
on production dates, numbers and
product specification inevitably
invites speculation and guesswork. Compounding this lack of
information is the apparent lack of
rigour in consistency of design and
assembly of gramophones, which might indicate that
the main focus of the company was to make and sell
records. Indeed, the relative importance of records to
gramophones may lead us to some answers, or at
least some reasoned guesswork, for the lingering
questions we have about the sometimes puzzling
range and model variations of Canadian Berliners. I'll
explore this in a future article.
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