COLUMBIA GRAPHOPHONE TYPE AQ
This is something of a mystery machine in the Columbia line. It never appeared in any Columbia Graphophone catalogs, and no advertisements by the Columbia company are known. The only illustrations that have been found are in advertisements by dealers, offering them as "Premium" machines starting in 1903. A couple of years later Columbia evidently sold off stocks through Sears Roebuck, fitting the machines with a larger brass-belled horn. These were marketed as "Oxford Junior."
The AQ Graphophone is very similar to another non-catalogued machine, the AP. However the AP lacked a feedscrew, working like a European "Puck," in which the reproducer moved with the record groove. If the machine were even slightly off-level, the reproducer would skid across the record. The AQ was a modest improvement, with a very crude half-nut to track along a coarse feedscrew. It lacks a lift lever, so the owner has to lift the reproducer and horn manually. The general design of the single-spring motor is very similiar to the Type Q and QA Graphophones except that it is mostly hidden by a metal plate. The 10" cone horn is the same as found on some other low-end Columbias, but with an attached support rod. It is a very basic machine yet it works quite well, functionally nearly equal to the Type Q. This one is apparently an early example of an AQ, with the gear cover stamped with "Keep Level," a carry-over from the AP. Later versions lack this marking.
These "Premium" machines were primarily marketed to dealers who used them as giveaways to generate business. In the ad below, a jeweler offered to send 36 cheap trinkets which a customer would then sell to friends and neighbors at 10c each (presumably a very high profit margin for the jeweler), then remit the $3.60 income to the jeweler to be rewarded with a free AQ Graphophone and three records. Additional records were sold at full price, 25c. Many retailers used similar cheap Premium machines to generate business, such as the Rectorphone and Crown.
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