The History of
Thorens
Through My "Collection"
Documenting the history of the company in
artifacts.
In 1883 Thorens apparently began making music box mechanisms in Switzerland.
Below is a nice old box into which someone has inserted a more modern Thorens mechanism. I picked it up around 2004.
It plays five different songs--the pins strike the notes on the comb.
Late in 2009 I picked up the curiousity below. It is a Thorens mechanism in a housing to play "How Dry I Am" while pouring a (presumably alcoholic) beverage.
The person who sold it claims, "After my grandfather came back from WWII his first Christmas present was this unique Silverite liquor bottle stopper and pourer. It plays music when the liquid is poured. It comes in its original gift box with brass tag from the jewelry store and still is in very good working condition. The box is 4 x 5 x 2" and has all its complete corners and is marked Silverite Company, Brooklyn 16, New York and Thorens for its quality music box. The music box works are marked Switzerland Thorens, see photos. When tilted 90 decrees, a brass ball swings inside releasing the mechanism which plays How Dry I Am that sounds like a symphony arrangement in a loud pleasing presentation."
[I guess that makes another sub-collection started.]
From "Music boxes: the collector's
guide to
selecting, restoring, and enjoying new and vintage music
boxes"--Gilbert
Bahl, 1993, Courage Books
"Hermann Thorens Sainte-Croix, Switzerland, 1881-1985. Produced musical movements and music boxes until 1985, when it was bought by Reuge SA. Known for its modern cylinder movements, which are found in many popular collectors' items, such as wooden boxes with revolving tops. The revolving portion often had wooden, hand-carved figures - e.g., Anri - and the base usually had a 28-note movement. The company's movements are also found mounted in a wide range of cases, ranging from simple, well-finished plain boxes to boxes with ornately decorated wooden inlay designs. The disc music boxes were sold under the names Edelwiess and Helvetia. The company was bought by Paillard after WWII, and Jean Paul Thorens opened a factory in L' Auberson to produce movements under the trade name Melodies. Trade mark: anchor cast into bedplate of Edelwiess disc machine."
Reuge started in 1886.
----------------------------------
From "Music Boxes: a guide for collectors"--David Tallis, 1971, Stein and Day
Hermann Thorens "Made small music boxes from
1846 to 1943 at Ste. Croix"
Ernst Paillard "Manager of the
(Paillard) Ste.
Croix works, with his brother-in-law Eugéne Thorens, forefather
of the
firm which exists today."
----------------------------------
Click on this picture to view a PDF of
a Paillard patent from 1882 which Eugéne witnessed:
But the firm we are interested in is
Hermann's.
Click on the picture below to see a patent from 1897 on a mechanical music toy by Hermann Thorens:
Click on the picture below to see a 1901 patent
by
Hermann for a "mechanical musical instrument" looking like a round disc
music box:
Advert from the Milwaukee Journal of April 28,
1947 (pg. 18):
Click below to see an odd advert from the April,
1978 edition of Popular Science
for a do-it-yourself music box using Thorens disc music box works.
But I guess not all their ideas on music boxes
were the best as this incident put them on page 1 of the Milwaukee Journal on January 19,
1944:
BTW: I am no expert on music boxes. If you
have any questions, a collector I trust swears by Nancy Fratti who can
be found here:
http://www.nancyfrattimusicboxes.com/
It was generally accepted that in 1903 Thorens began making cylinder phonographs (at the bottom of the page is cited a publication by Thorens that says the first cylinder machines were made in 1889 but they were first put in their catalog in 1902) and changed in 1906 to outside horn disc gramophones. Other companies did the same with less expertise in spring-driven mechanisms (furniture companies, piano companies, aircraft companies (!) and organ manufacturers). I would be interested in getting any of these older Thorens machines but they are few and far between in North America. I have included links to pages with some great pictures of these older machines.
Courtesy of the City of London Phonograph and Gramophone Society, I have copies of portions of three Thorens catalogs--1907, 1910 (although the machines seem more primitive than the 1907s) and 1914--they bundled into one volume in 1967.
I have made a translation of the Thorens portion of a Swiss page and greatly expanded it showing cylinder phonographs and disc gramophones from other sources here: Thorens phonographs and gramophones. This is my main overall Thorens acoustic page.
In the article The failed 1912 merger between Carl Lindström AG, the Gramophone Company Ltd and the Victor Talking Machine Co Inc., Peter Martland makes the following quote:
"In 1911, the Swiss manufacturer Thorens exported clockwork motors for use in British-made disk players to the value of £75,000 [M1,875,000 or $375,000]. In comparison, the machine turnover of the British branch of the Gramophone Company was £108,242 [M2,706,050 or $541,210]. However as the prices of Lindström machines were anything up to eighty per cent cheaper than those of the Gramophone Company, the extent of German and Swiss domination of the British and Russian record player trade must have been phenomenal."
Click on this picture to see a PDF of a 1915 patent by Hermann Thorens on a 'frame for the driving mechanism for talking machines':
Click on this picture to see a PDF of a 1917 patent by Hermann Thorens on an 'automatic brake for talking machines':
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What I have been able to get so far are: one spring-driven table-top, one portable and one 'cameraphone'.
This 2007 acquisition is a table top disc gramophone.
Lid and 'volume doors' open.
The decoration on the lid and one door.
Inside the case. The picture is 'upside down' to show the number in the lower corner ('16'). The naked wood on the left is a modification someone has since made to help guide the crank handle. BTW these Thorens 'pillar-and-plate' motors were available into the 1960s (Recently opened 'old stock' boxes had the motors wrapped in newspaper from April, 1960! Here is a motor purchased around 2005. Here you can see the date on the French language newspaper used for wrapping. Courtesy Paul Flint.) and are now being put into machines built to mimic those of the 1900s (in other words, fake antiques, 'crapophones').
The motor doesn't have quite the same logo as used elsewhere. Note the anchor.
On the bottom of the inside of the case the number is found again. Is this how they matched up the parts for individual machines? Note how the stain was not applied where we wouldn't see.
The reproducer has the same anchors so we can assume it was also branded for Thorens--it is marked 'made in Switzerland' (I make this point as some machines of this vintage will have parts from various manufacturers 'thrown' together.)
The person who sold this machine to me knew I was interested in the company's history, so he also gave me a letter that was sent to the person who owned it before. This individual wrote to Thorens about the machine in 1965 (when they seemed to still be interested in their history).
And Thorens claims that it was made by them in 1925.
If this is true, Thorens was able to copy Victor's Orthophonic reproducer work extremely quickly as "Victor Day" (when the Orthophonic technology was released to the public) was November 2, 1925. Perhaps this was after 1925. The style is very consistent with many of the machines from Thoren's 1914 catalog (here).
Here is another tabletop Thorens likely of older vintage from John Peel (similar to a Victor Victrola VV-IV).
This is my Thorens 'Excelda' 'cameraphone' (picked up around 2004). These were available in black (in wood, with mica diaphragms) starting in 1935 and in various colours (and with metal bodies and diaphragms) from 1942 to 1947 (which gives a date to my green one below--here is picture of all colours). With it is a Kodak camera of the style it was made to mimic (A Toronto-made No. 1A Pocket Folding camera series II, 1929-31, originally $24.50). More than one gramophone maker made machines that were portable and looked like cameras. Don't ask me why.
The Kodak (which you can also see on the main Family page) opened up.
The Excelda opened up.
The size of the box forces you to put it on the edge of the table to wind. Once wound, you can put it anywhere to play. To wind again, take off the record and put it back on the edge. The 'turntable' is so small that you must screw the record in place to prevent wobble--and the instructions suggested you use a second record under it to help support the one being played and to help regulate the speed.
There's that trademark again.
Here is a PDF of the original Excelda instructions (679kb).
The Russians (Soviets) made a copy of this machine--an example is here.
Thorens also made the 'Graphonette' ultra-small portable, which can be seen here: http://www.grammophon.ch/taschen_grammophone/thorens/thorens.htm
And here again is...
Here is a very similar Thorens portable from Alexandar Pavlovic
Here is a different but similar Thorens portable from Greg Legault.
Greg's machine looks much like these machines from the Milwaukee Journal of September 17, 1945 (pg. 8)--left--and November 11, 1945 (pg. 21):
-Shelby Sim of Sarnia (via Doug) sends these pictures of a 'Pal Jr.' portable (I thought 'Pal' was a Canadian portable from Compo) with a Thorens motor here.
-Perophone apparently used Thorens motors.
And if you use any of the machines above, you will need to use a new needle for each side of each record. So...
The "200 Forte" tin I picked up from Quebec around 1999 and the others from Minnesota, France, England and Australia in 2009 and 2010. There are more I could collect, shown here, but note the collared tin is not shown (link courtesy of "songster.de the (hopefully) largest Needle Tin Collection online" [only seems to work with Microsoft Exploder]).
I had not previously seen a collared needle (shown):
Detail of brass container:
Paper holder of Durasteel ("100 plays each!") closed:
My friend Horst has two outside-horn Thorens machines. Click on the machines below to see more pictures.
Thorens made lighters from 1913 to 1964. Here are two Thorens lighters and an advertisement I picked up along with a 1919 Thorens lighter patent.
Thorens made harmonicas from 1914 to 1952. Here is a Thorens harmonica I picked up.
Thorens made mechanical razors from 1954 to 1960. Here is a Thorens razor I picked up.
In 1928 Thorens developed an electric motor for gramophones and continued on in this business. This motor has also been called the first electric 'direct drive' turntable. Click the picture below to see a PDF of a patent assigned to "Hermann Thorens Société Anonyme" in 1944 for "an automatic record changer":
Click the picture below to see a PDF of a patent assigned to "Hermann Thorens S.A." in 1945 for a "wireless receiver":
The above looks suspiciously like this 'New Century tuner 1949-1952' care of the 'Radio Museum'.
Radio museum Thorens info found here: http://radiomuseum.org/m/thorens_ch_en_1.html
And
an article from the St. Petersburg
Times of February 7, 1960 (pg. 37):
Below is my 'serious' TD160
turntable, first manufactured in
1972. It has a 7 pound platter to help regulate its speed.
Currently it is hooked up to the computer to digitize old vinyl
recordings otherwise unavailable in digital format. As mentioned
above, this is what started the 'collection' (although there was a huge
gap between purchasing this one and the portable).
Trademark hasn't changed in how long?
As noted above, a PDF 'magazine' was available for free download from Thorens in 2008. Within it was a bit of company history in their own words as well as some images. The text and images from this article can be found here.
If you are looking for more information on modern Thorens turntables, start with the Analog Department: http://www.theanalogdept.com/thorens_dept_.htm
