Phonograph:Victor

At just $15, this 1902 Royal was the lowest-priced phonograph produced by the Victor Talking Machine Company in the earliest years of its existence. Innovative German immigrant Emile Berliner gave the phonograph its first big boost in the 1890s by introducing the disc phonograph. The ease of copying disc recordings provided a huge advantage over competitor Thomas Edison's cylinders. The Victor company, formed in 1901 from the ruins of Berliner's Gramophone Company, was among the first to mass-produce affordable phonographs. Having acquired the rights to Berliner's designs as well as the Nipper logo "His Master's Voice," Victor quickly dominated the industry, and the quizzical pooch became the most familiar image in American advertising. The single-spring motor required winding prior to playing each record, although an early brochure claimed that it had the power to play "nearly two 7-inch records on each winding." The Royal featured a standard 16-inch steel horn and a seven-inch turntable to match the size of the popular low-cost discs made by Victor.