Jumped into acoustic phonographs in a big way!

[Bill Cahill]

I know, but, the machines, and, records they played were very expensive. The records alone were 500.00 apiece. They didn't know what they really had.
Bill Cahill

[David Roper]

Source.

Your.

Info.

Unless and until you can point to some documentation somewhere of phonograph records selling for what was then an average worker's yearly wage, I cannot even begin to take this seriously. I'd like to see proof that such a machine existed because so far I haven't found any.

[Jeffhs]

I cannot believe that, in the early 1900s, records designed to be played on a cranked phono would be priced anywhere near $500 each. That figure sounds, to me, a lot more like the cost of a good console wind-up phono of the period. There are photos of such a unit in this thread; it looks almost like a 1950s-'60s Magnavox or other make console radio-phonograph. A dead giveaway that it's just a record player, of course, is the crank on the side of the cabinet.

[Bill R]

Search google for the shahs multiplex grande. The shaw bought 150 records for it at a cost of $1800. There were apparently two made. One was at the 1904 St. Louis worlds fair. There was indeed three tracks on the cylinder.

[Bill R]

'Never, in the history of present making, has so original and elaborate a gift been made by a subject to his sovereign as the one recently ordered in Washington from the Columbia Phonograph Co., by the Persian minister, for presentation to the Shah of Persia. 'This magnificent gift, which was shipped March 21st [1901] from the factory of the American Graphophone Co., Bridgeport, Conn., consists of a multiplex Graphophone Grand and thirty-four barrels of records and blank cylinders.
'The machine was built on the model of the one exhibited at the Paris Exposition last summer, and which attracted the attention and won the admiration of visitors from all parts of the world. It is the most wonderful sound reproducing mechanism ever constructed and it contains new features in addition to those embodied in the famous Graphophone Grand. It uses three separate horns, acting in absolute unison with three separate and distinct records, each one of which gives the same loud, pure tone as that of the Graphophone Grand. The combination of all three in unison, gives an intensity of volume and a sweetness and richness of tone which seem almost beyond belief and results are obtained that is difficult to realize are within the possibilities of round reproducing mechanism.
'One of the interesting features of this precious shipment is that it will complete the last stage of its journey - from Batum to Teheren - on the backs of camels, and it goes without saying that no present that has ever been received at the palace of the Shah created even a small fraction of the interest that will be awakened when this phenomenal instrument, from far away Connecticut, makes it appearance and lifts up its wondrous voices.'
(The Ford Wayne Sentinel, Fort Wayne, Indiana, Tuesday, 26 March 1901, p. 4c)


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[David Roper]

I am duly impressed by your research Bill R, thank you. So in reality the records came to $12 each, not bad at all considering they were specialty one-offs. Expressed in 2012 dollars that's about $328 for each custom record pressing of a live recording session, quite a bargain! I'm sure the Shah could well afford it. I wonder if the machine survives somewhere.

Again, thanks for doing the research.

[Bill R]

I am amazed the machine ever made it to its destination in the first place. It had to be carried in on camels and mules. The machine and 30 barrels of records over the desert by camel is impressive in its own right.