Berliner Discs
Emile Berliner immigrated to the United States from Germany in 1870 at age nineteen. Self educated,
he sold a telephone transmitter improvement to the
Bell Telephone people, and earned a good sum of money. No one seems to know exactly when Berliner
started work on the gramophone, but his first patent for a disk machine was September 26, 1887. His first method used the process of
photoengraving. His second process was by chemical etching. I have never seen examples of either of these two metods.
In 1894 Berliner founded the United States Gramophone Company, manufacturing records in a process roughly similar to
today's record manufacturing process. He issued records until June, 1900. The record pictured here dates to the early part of 1898. I have one
other example from 1899. For a much more complete discription of Berliner records, see Tim Gracyk's Berliner page.
In addition, there was a Canadian Berliner Company.
This page aided significantly by THE FABULOUS PHONGRAPH by Roland Gelatt published in 1977 by Collier Books.
