Month: November 2022

The Age of Advertising: Pfanstiehl phonograph needles

Here are two advertisements in one: Pfanstiehl phonograph needles, and, Davega Department Stores.

The Davega stores were a New York metropolitan area chain that sold consumer durables, appliances, sporting goods, and apparel. The company was founded in 1879, expanded to 27 stores by 1954, and survived until April of 1963, when it declared bankruptcy.

The advertisement lists nine stores at the following locations: New York: The Hotel Commodore (111 East 42nd Street); Times Square; the Empire State Building; “Downtown”; Brooklyn, and the Bronx. New Jersey: Newark, Paterson, and Jersey City.

The phrase “phonograph needles” conjures an era that may have little resonance today (ahem…unintended pun there….) given the advent and pervasiveness of digital technology, but which is an example of the rapidity of technological and cultural change.

____________________

THIS Phonograph Needle

DOES THE WORK OF
1000 Ordinary NEEDLES

PLAYS AT LEAST 4,000 RECORDS WITHOUT CHANGE

Pfanstiehl
LONG LIFE NEEDLE

Put a Pfanstiehl needle in your phonograph and forget it.  No more bother changing needles.  More enjoyment from your records.  Longer record life because the burnished TIP of precious metals glides smoothly along the record grooves even after thousands of plays.  Used by owners of Capehart, Stromberg-Carlson, Victor, Zenith and all other fine photographs.  $1.50

Hotel Commodore … 111 E. 42nd St.
Times Square … 152 w. 42nd St.
Empire State Bldg. … 18 W. 34th St.
Downtown … 63 Cortlandt St.
Brooklyn … 360 Fulton St.
Newark … 60 Park Place
Bronx … 31 E. Fordham Rd.
Paterson … 185 Main St.
Jersey City … 30 Journal Sq.

See phone book for other addresses.

DAVEGA

Mail Orders . 111 E. 42nd St., N.Y. 17, N.Y.

____________________

I don’t know if the company still exists as an independent entity, but its products are still available through retailers of specialized electronic and audio gear, such as TheVoiceofMusic, Turntable Needles, and, Phonographs.org.

Reference

Davega Stores, at wikipedia

The Age of Advertising: Buy Your Christmas Philco Radio Now! – December 21, 1941

Technology changes, as does the world of business.

Some corporations are acquired by other enterprises.  Some merge with competitors.  Some, quickly or gradually, falter, and go out of business.

Neither the manufacturer – Philco Radio – nor the merchant – Davega Stores – from this New York Times advertisement of December 21, 1941 (published two weeks after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor) still exist.

But, it’s still s a most interesting advertisement. 

Notably, in the way that Philco’s advertising staff correctly anticipated that defense needs would limit the availability and selection of radios for the civilian market for the indeterminate future.

Notably, in the way that prospective customers are advised to trade in their old radios, without specifying what, exactly, they’ll receive in exchange!

Notably, in the way that a selling point of the “AC-DC Superheterodyne Radio” is the presence of 5 tubes.  (During the 1960s, hand-held, portable AM receivers which included transistors as components were dubbed “transistors”!  A selling point!)

As for Philco, the company was founded in 1892 as the Helois Electric Company, with the name “Philco” appearing in 1919.  The company existed as such until 1961, when it was acquired by the Ford Motor Company.

Davega stores were a New York metropolitan area chain that sold consumer durables, appliances, sporting goods, and apparel.  The company was founded in 1879, expanded to 27 stores by 1954, and survived until April of 1963, when it declared bankruptcy.  (Note that of the 27 stores listed below, all but 3 are located in the New York Metro area.)

The full text of the advertisement – which has a curious mixture of font styles and sizes – follows the image…

____________________

30 DAVEGA STORES

Buy Your Christmas
PHILCO RADIO NOW!

Shop early for complete selection and prompt delivery.  Possible scarcity because of defense needs may limit later selection.

AC-DC SUPERHETERODYNE

Full Vision Dial, Automatic Volume Control.  Super-sensitive Speaker.  5 Tubes and other features make this efficient, compact radio a tremendous value.

Trade In Your Old Radio

CHARGE-IT
Three easy monthly payments.  Pay nothing until Jan. 15.  No Credit Charge on this plan.
IMPORTANT
Do not buy any Philco Radio with the serial number removed or mutilated, as this renders the factory guarantee null and void.

3-WAY Year-Round PORTABLE
AC DC
SELF POWERED

Smart, lightweight Philco portable for all-year-round use anywhere, indoors and outdoors!  Case is covered in new cowhide graining with ivory piping.  Real leather handle.

Trade In Your Old Radio

Downtown – 15 Cortlandt St.
Downtown – 63 Cortlandt St.
Near 13th St. 831 Broadway
Hotel Commodore – 111 E. 42nd St.
Empire State Bldg. – 18 W. 34th St.
Madison Square Garden – 825 Eighth Ave.
Yorkville – 148 E. 86th St.
86th St. – 2369 Broadway
Harlem – 125 W. 125th St.
180th St. – 1383 St. Nicholas Ave.
Cor. 163rd St. 945 Southern Blvd.
Bronx – 31 E. Fordham Rd.
149th St. – 2860 Third Ave.
Brooklyn (Boro Hall) – 360 Fulton St.
Brooklyn – 924 Flatbush Ave.
Brooklyn – 1304 Kings Highway
Bay Ridge – 3106 Fifth Ave.
Bensonhurst – 2065 86th St.
Brownsville – 1703 Pitkin Ave.
Jamaica – 163-24 Jamaica Ave.
Astoria – 31-55 Steinway St.
Flushing – 39-11 Main St.
Hempstead – 45 Main St.
White Plains – 175 Main St.
Newark – 80 Park Place (Military Park Bldg.)
Jersey City – 30 Journal St.
Paterson – 185 Main St.

ALL STORES OPEN EVENINGS

For further information about Philco Radio Write
Davega – 76 9th Ave., N.Y.C., or Phone CHelsea 3-5255

____________________

Just Three References

Philco Radio, at Philco Radio Forum

Philco Radio, at General History

Philco Radio Historical Society

The Age of Advertising: National Cash Register Corporation – August 9, 1943

Before NCR was “NCR”, the company was appropriately known as the National Cash Register Corporation. After having been acquired by ATT in 1991, a 1996 restructuring of that firm led to the spin-off Lucent Technologies and NCR, with the firm being the only “spun-off” company that has retained its name.

This advertisement, from August 9, 1943, illustrates the company’s National Class 3000 Bookkeeping Machine.

The advertisement is quite simple in style and design. A sketch of a model using an NC 3000 is repeated four times in the same illustration, giving an impression of “depth” and activity as in – well, quite appropriately! – an office setting. An example of a neatly completed bill appears in the background.

The full text of the advertisement appears at bottom. Note the use of alpha-numeric telephone number prefixes (“CIrcle”, “MOtt”, and “CAnal”).

Bookkeepers for a Nation

Unheralded!  Unsung! …  It’s time to praise the bookkeepers of our nation … for, without them, the wheels of industry would not turn to produce vital war materials and keep supplies rolling up to the home front and on to you.  

Without machines to help them do this job, hundreds upon thousands of new bookkeepers would be needed to keep our records, and millions of man-hours would be stolen from our war effort.

National Typewriting-Bookkeeping Machines in industry, in business and in government are speeding record making and record keeping for the nation because they are simple and easy to operate…for they alone combine the standard adding machine and typewriter keyboards with full visibility of forms in the machines…  Any typist with a knowledge of an adding machine becomes a proficient operator with a few hours’ practice.

Nationals are flexible…for they can be changed to do all sorts of bookkeeping…like the statement you receive from the department store or the wholesaler…or for purchase records…payroll writing…posting general ledgers…and numerous other applications.

National Typewriting-Bookkeeping Machines, as well as all other National products and systems, save man-hours and provide protection over money and records for the bookkeeping of the nation.

National Accounting-Bookkeeping Machines may be secured by essential industries through priorities… A stock of modern used National Cash Registers is also available for business needs.

The National Cash Register Company

CASH REGISTERS      *      ACCOUNTING – BOOKKEEPING MACHINES

40 ROCKEFELLER PLAZA, CIrcle 5-6300
321 EAST 149TH STREET, MOtt Haven 9-3323
138 BOWERY, CAnal 6-4906

______________________________

Here’s an illustration of an NC 3000 from Office Museum:

These two images – showing the front and rear of an NC 3000, on its stand – are from the Smithsonian Museum of American History. This example was manufactured in 1938 or 1939.

And, Some References

Early Office Museum – Antique Special Purpose Typewriters, at OfficeMuseum.com 

Bookkeeping Machines, at Smithsonian National Museum of American History

Mathematical Treasure: National Class 3000 Bookkeeping Machine on Stand, at Smithsonian National Museum of American History

NCR Corporation, at Wikipedia

 

The Age of Advertising: The Noiseless Typewriter – June 24, 1918

Extolled by C. Montgomery Burns…!

An emblematic aspect of mid-twentieth-century movies and television programs which portrayed – whether seriously; whether in parody – corporate “office” settings, was the depiction of row, upon row (upon another row) of secretarial, clerical, or administrative personnel, each busily typing away upon their own typewriter or calculating (“adding”) machine.

A humorous example of this effect occurs in the Twilight Zone episode “Mr. Bevis“, which – starring Orson Bean as protagonist James B.W. Bevis – was broadcast on June 3, 1960.

While the the purely visual aspect of such scenes – through their depiction of conformity and regimentation – could be humorously cynical, the sounds generated in such settings – a fusillade of overlapping clickety-clack * pause * clickety-clack * pause * riiiinnnnng-of-a-bell (end of line approaching! carriage return impending!) * clickety-clack (and, repeat) struck a deeper chord: The viewer did not actually have to “view” the scene to understand its nature.  Sound by itself was enough to communicate setting, characters, and sometimes give an inkling of plot.

It seems that “sound”, per se, has long been an issue in the business world: whether one hundred years ago; whether in movies and television; whether through the “white noise” deliberately permeating the offices of contemporary corporations.

An example of this appears below: An advertisement for “The Noiseless Typewriter” that appeared in The New York Times on June 24, 1918.

George Fudacz’s “The Antikey Chop” website clearly presents the history of the Noiseless Typewriter Company and its products.  The Noiseless Typewriter was the collaborative invention of Wellington Parker Kidder (1853-1924) and George Gould Going (1872-1954), with their firm being incorporated in January of 1909.  Their company merged with the Remington Typewriter Company in 1924 “to form Remington-Noiseless, a subsidiary of The Remington Typewriter Company.”

As described at Richard Milton’s Portable Typewriters website (and as seen in the advertisement from the Times) “…the physical shape of the noiseless portable happened to fit perfectly the streamlined Art Deco contours favoured by designers in the 1920s and 1930s and the resulting Noiseless Portable is considered by many collectors to be one of the most beautiful typewriters ever designed.”

The ad:

The text of the ad:

The NOISELESS TYPEWRITER

On the 
Q.T.

          Write for booklet
“THE TYPEWRITER PLUS”

Suppose you issued instructions that for one day all writing in your office must be done with pens.  What a miraculous quite would reign that day!  What an increase in concentration and deep thinking for yourself and every employee!

You must have typewriters, of course, but there is no longer any law of necessity that says to you that you must have noisy typewriters.

The Noiseless Typewriter is really noiseless.  It does beautiful work and it does it quickly.  It is durable – a mechanical marvel.  Makes the office a better place to work in.  Gives every stenographer a better opportunity for advancement into the main office.  Write, call or telephone for a demonstration.

The NOISELESS
     T Y P E W R I T E R

THE NOISELESS TYPEWRITER COMPANY
253 Broadway —– Telephone ★ Barclay 8205

______________________________

You can view images of noiseless typewriter(s) at … appropriately enough! … Noiseless Typewriters.

Here’s Some References

Mr. Bevis (Description of episode), at Wikipedia

Noiseless Portable, at The Virtual Typewriter Museum

The Noiseless Portable, at The Antikey Chop Typewriter Collection

The Noiseless Typewriter, at Portable Typewriters

The Age of Advertising: The Ediphone – June 13, 1918

Heartily endorsed by C. Montgomery Burns…!

We have the Dictaphone.

Now, here’s an advertisement for the the competitor of the Dictaphone:  The Ediphone. 

Though similar in concept to the former, the difference between the two systems was, according to ObsoleteMedia.org, “…the recording method, with Edison using ‘hill and dale’ recording, while the Graphophone used lateral (side to side) recording.  The cylinders could have a layer of wax shaved off, to enable re-use.” 

The advertisement below, which appeared in The New York Times on June 13, 1918, is (hey, unsurprisingly!) strikingly similar in image and message to the three advertisements for the Dictaphone:  A pensive business owner or supervisor looks over the office floor, and noting three unoccupied desks – each with a placard prominently denoting that the worker is on (?! – gasp!) “Vacation”, muses upon the need to hire inadequately trained substitute employees (temps?) to accomplish the work of trained personnel.  To the rescue?  The Ediphone!

Intriguingly, the advertisement closes – again, as did the three ads for the Dictaphone – with the suggestion that the prospective customer obtain a copy of the Ediphone company’s free publication, “Better Letters Magazine”.

Scroll down to read the transcribed text of the advertisement…

Don’t worry about “substitute” stenographers

Vacation time is looming up.  Usually that means strange faces trying to handle strange jobs – never a good or satisfactory combination.

This summer your problem is multiplied.  You are short of regular help – it looks impossible to get good substitutes to fill in.  And you are using the shorthand system to boot.

Right you are.  If The Ediphone were on duty in your office all the time you would not be wrinkling your brow on “what to do”.

You would be right side up because you would be able to handle your correspondence efficiently and economically right through the summer.  That’s a plain truth you will discover as soon as you know The Ediphone.

THE GENUINE EDISON DICTATING MACHINE

The Ediphone

BUILT BY EDISON FOR BETTER LETTERS

Call Barnes – Rector 3598

Edwin C. Barnes & Bros.
114 Liberty Street

“Build by Edison – Installed by Barnes”

Ask for Edison’s Better Letters Magazine
Newark office: 207 Market Street (Tel. Market 8053)

______________________________

This video, by Shawn Borri, demonstrates how to use the Ediphone…

This video, by The Victrola Guy, is a presentation of a complete Edison Ediphone and Transcription Machine…

Just Four References

Dictation Machine, at Wikipedia

Ediphone, at Museum of Obsolete Media

Shawn Borri’s YouTube Channel (“Postings of music, and experiments, even daily thoughts of Shawn Borri, controversial ” Mad Audio Scientist”.)

TheVictrolaGuy’s YouTube Channel (“This is an ongoing series of experiments of recording on the Edison Cylinder Phonograph…”)