United States Phonograph Company Flyer (Brown-Wax Cylinders, c. 1898)

This rare United States Phonograph Company four-panel flyer advertises selections from Sousa’s comic opera, The Bride-Elect, in this case played not by Sousa’s band, but by Edward Issler’s. The flyer most likely dates to 1898. The Bride-Elect opened at the Knickerbocker Theatre (New York) on April 11, 1898, closed in June after 64 performances, then had a  brief return engagement at the Harlem Opera House in October of that year.
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The flyer is from Bill Bryant’s archive, which also includes a complete 32-page United States Phonograph Company cylinder catalog and related materials. We’ll be scanning and posting the full catalog on the Mainspring Press website later this month, as part of our new American Cylinder Record Project.

Eldridge Johnson’s Victor Ads (1901)

Here are a couple of the earliest ads to feature the Victor brand, which Eldridge Johnson introduced after he was enjoined from using the Gram-O-Phone name. Both ads pre-date the founding of the Victor Talking Machine Company on October 3, 1901; Johnson at this point was operating under his own name.

John Philip Sousa was an early Victor supporter, even though he did not personally conduct his band’s records (that duty was handled by his assistants, or on occasion even the Victor studio conductors; details can be found in John Bolig’s Victor Label Discography series). This is the first known ad in which he offered his endorsement of Victor products: