Tiffany and Jason Murphy wrote, in part:

> We have a free standing Grafanola (sic) much like a table
> with lions feet.  The dimensions are 27D x 31H x 41W.  We have never
> seen one like it and have no information about it.  Could you please
> help us!

While "Grafonola" may sound like a breakfast cereal, it is the trade
name for the enclosed-horn phonographs of the Columbia Graphophone Co.
Their cylinder machines were called "Graphophones" and their open horn
disc players "Disc Graphophones."

While Victor coined the trade name "Victrola" for its enclosed horn
models which first appeared in 1907, Columbia similarly modified the
name "Graphophone" into "Grafonola."

(As an aside, there was a bit of discussion on 78-l a while back as
to the origin of the name "Victrola" and whether Victor CEO Eldridge
Johnson "cribbed" the "-ola" suffix from another, earlier, highly
successful musical "-ola," the "Pianola.")

 [ Who came first: Pianola or Coca-Cola?  -- Robbie

While Victor insisted that a Victrola look like a phonograph, and
nothing else, and be unsuitable as a plant stand, (hence the ubiquitous
and widely imitated ogee-shaped "dome" lid) Columbia countered by
offering numerous models that, when closed up, would pass for other
types of furniture, such as a desk, parlor table, or even a "miniature"
grand piano!  The desk and table imitations had the works in a drawer
at one end and the speaker behind doors or louvers at the other end.

There were three models in the Regent line, all of which had graceful
Queen Anne legs with lion paw carved feet: the Regent, which resembled
a desk, 28" deep by 45" wide and sold for $200 when introduced in 1909;
The Regent Junior, which looked like a library table with drawers
below, 31" high by 40" wide by 26 1/2" deep, and sold for $150 when
introduced in 1911; and the Baby Regent, introduced in 1911 at $100,
28" square and which resembled an end table.

Other models included a "Colonial" which resembled a drum-style end
table, a mission oak style Regent, and two different style Graphophone
Grands, which resembled small pianos, 42" high by 33" wide by 41"
deep.  (If I remember correctly, one of these was used in the film
"The Great Gatsby.")

It sounds like the Murphy's 'Graphonola' is a Regent Junior, from the
dimensions and description.

A good reference on Columbia disc machines is "Columbia Phonograph
Companion, Volume II" (1996) by Robert Baumbach (Author of "Look for
the Dog.")

Mark S. Chester
mschester@msn.com