EXPERT Handmade Gramophones
EXPERT Timeline of dates, places and models.
EXPERT Handmade Gramophones was founded in June 1930, by Ellis Michael Ginn.
Just a few months earlier, Michael Ginn had lost control of his namesake company, E.M.G Handmade Gramophones Ltd. He sold his house and moved back to his in-laws house at Ingerthorpe in Highgate. In direct retaliation and with his usual gusto he started up, EXPERT Handmade Gramophones, opening with a new showroom at 55, Rathbone Place, just off Oxford Street.
David Phillips, his brother-in-law joined him and together they set about designing and hand making one of the most renowned acoustic gramophone ever built - the EXPERT Senior. Ginn's ego demanded the best and with The Senior, he set the benchmark very high with only the VICTOR / HMV Orthophonic Range and the E.M.G Xb Oversize gramophones coming even close.
Their new carpenter was a Mr Edwards.
With the advent of electrical reproduction, this achievement seemed futile and the only way to survive in the ever changing marketplace was to produce more affordable acoustic gramophones and ultimately design and build electrical reproducers
The War years were tough on EXPERT. Ginn returned to the Army and later the Navy, Phillips took on the daunting tasks of Incident warden. Ginn's son Joe, who had started to help out in the business, went to the RAF. Even after the War, EXPERT struggled to survive and it took a good few years for them to get back on their feet.
David Phillips started to design new amplifiers, Joe Ginn was given the task of repairing pick-ups and also designed the excellent new, EXPERT thorn sharpener. The final incarnation of the acoustic EXPERT Senior was launched in 1947.
Through the early 1950's, EXPERT started to look healthier. The EXPERT electrical reproduction range, conceived by David Phillips, took on a life of its own. Surviving EXPERT catalogues show the vast range of amplifiers, tuners and speakers offered. David Phillips was always trying to stay ahead of the crowd, producing excellent quality Hi-Fi components which were sold individually and fine-tuned in custom made radiograms. Not many of these bulky radiograms survive, as they are more often than not, cannibalized for their valuable and highly sought after innards.
Even with the high quality of products and rave reviews, EXPERT were losing ground trying to compete with the melee of company's now mass producing, electrical gramophone and radios.