Brunswick Model 112

With Ultona Tone Arm

Acquired 19 April 2008

The Brunswick with the Ultona tone arm is the Swiss Army Knife of phonographs. It was designed to play all three of the competing formats, Victor, Edison and Pathé. I have been wanting one for years, ever since I saw an over priced one at the now defunct Allisonville Antique Mall in Indianapolis. The type of Ultona with all three functions are actually hard to come by. Attractive and not falling apart is even harder still, as is attested to the fact it has taken me years to find one that fit all the bill. But I happened upon all three circumstances on a trip to Kokomo IN. It is a beautiful tiger oak in amazing condition and was more than reasonably priced. Even still I talked the guy down to a paltry $160. I loaded it into the back seat of my Lincoln Town Car (Can't beat big American luxury cars) and brought it home.

Brunswick today is of course thought of as a sporting goods company specializing in bowling equipment, but they started out as a furniture manufacturer. Edison and then other phonograph manufacturers turned to Brunswick to build the fine and often elaborate cabinets for their products. Brunswick after a while decided that since they were already building most of the phonographs that others sold under their own names, why not build their own and get a piece of the pie and the glory? Just before the first world war reached America, they started to do just that, and soon became a major player even edging out Columbia to become the third biggest in the industry, in spite of the fact that Brunswick's phonograph business was never it's main focus. With the ingenious Ultona tone arm patented in September 1917, they seized the technological gap between the three competing technologies and exploited it to their advantage. They were also the first to attempt electronic recording in the very early 1920's, although with little success at the beginning, making the early mistakes the others learned from. Brunswick was indeed a true innovator.

Here is a side view. The tiger oak striping does not show up well with my cheap camera.

With the lid closed.

Here is the Ultona arm set for use with Pathé records. The weight is slid forward, the pathe ball is in line with the tone arm. The Edison needle bar is on top.

Here it is set up for playing standard Victor 78 RPM records. It is turned on it's side and rotated to a 45 degree angle.

And Here for playing Edison records. The Edison side is rotated to the bottom. The weight is sent back and the arm is extended so the Edison needle bar will be tracking in line with the center hub.

Here are instructions for using the Ultona from a period Brunswick instruction book:

...AND just for the halibut, for those who just can't get enough information about the Brunswick Ultona tone arm, this web site will take extreme way too far by giving you at no extra charge, the patent papers on it. I am sure seeing these will add even more meaning to your already wonderful life...