E. Berliner's Gramophone

Formed: 1892, Washington, DC, United States Closed: October 3, 1901, Washington, DC, United States The commercial beginnings of Emile Berliner's disc gramophone were in Europe. In 1889 and during the early 1890s Berliner marketed a toy gramophone and small celluloid 5" discs through a joint venture with the German toy company Kammer & Reinhardt. These early records were sold in Germany and England. Berliner returned to the U.S. and founded The American Gramophone Company in Washington D.C. in 1891, but this venture produced only experimental and prototype discs. He then organized the United States Gramophone Company in 1893, and began commercial development of machines and discs for the American market. The first discs on the E. Berliner's Gramophone label were offered for sale in November 1894. In 1895, he organized the Berliner Gramophone Company, which operated recording studios in Washington, New York and Philadelphia. According to court records, slightly fewer than two million Berliner Records were sold in the U.S. between 1894 and 1900. By 1900, mounting legal problems resulted in an injunction against Berliner that marked the end of his business in the U.S. In October 1901, Berliner assigned his interests to Eldridge R. Johnson's newly created company Victor Talking Machine Co.. Berliner's UK branch, founded 1897 in London, was called The Gramophone Company (later Gramophone & Typewriter Ltd.) and became part of Electric & Musical Industries Ltd. in 1931. In 1898 a German branch of the Gramophone Company was started, Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft.