[ John Farmer wrote in 090209 MMDigest:

> The rating of the motor is 1/8 h.p., 110 Volts, 2.5 Amps, 40 Hz.  (Was
> 40 Hz a normal frequency in the US, I thought it was usually 60Hz.)

The USA (actually, pretty much all of North America) is all 60 Hz now,
but 100 years ago there was no national standard and you could find
anything from 25 Hz up to 133 Hz.  It was all up to the local utility
and who supplied their equipment.  I know that Wurlitzer, in some of
their instructions, even mentions getting the correct motor for the
local power.  (Parts of the Los Angeles area were 50 Hz unto the late
1940s.)

Also, from Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_frequency):
"A large interconnected 40 Hz network existed in north-east England
(the Newcastle-upon-Tyne Electric Supply Company, NESCO) until the
advent of the National Grid (UK) in the late 1920s,"

z!
Carl Zwanzig

 [ Orval Cooper of Long Beach, Calif., told me of the big changeover
 [ in 1948.  "The power company replaced your old 50 Hz electric
 [ clocks with 60 Hz clocks.  Then they sold the old clocks in the
 [ 50 Hz regions of Latin America!"  -- Robbie