Not My Victrola

Well, I'll be switched! cdbpbx has a Brunswick with the three-way tonehead, just like our machine!  You see the tonehead turned over in this video to play an Edison Diamond Disc, and that works OK if no-one walks across the floor with heavy feet.  Edison discs have shallow grooves, and the Edison machines that play them have a mechanical feed that pulls the tone arm across the disc, so there is no force that would make the needle skip.  This Brunswick, however, has no feed, and the tone arm is pulled along by the groove in the disc.  It usually works.  Worn records or unlevel floors will play havoc with it, though.

The song has an interesting topic.  Blacksmiths had to adapt or starve during the 1920's, and then in the 1930's the Depression came along.  Have you seen the old hand powered gasoline pumps with the clear glass tops?  A trick used by service station owners back then was to pump up gasoline during idle times on sunny days, leaving a little room at the top.  Sunshine would warm the gas, making it expand about ten percent.  I guess on cold days they did NOT pump gas up ahead of time.