The Puritone Phonograph was manufactured in Toronto by Gordon MacKay & Co, Limited, Wholesale Merchants and Manufacturers. "These phonographs are the products of a factory that has been making a specialty of this line for fifteen years. Produced in Canada by Canadian craftsmen."
The Gordon MacKay Company, a wholesale dry goods company operating throughout Canada, had been at the north-west corner of Bay and Front Street, Toronto, since 1871. They lost their warehouses to the Great Fire of 1904. Architect John Francis Brown was hired to design a 5-storey stone and brick warehouse that was built in 1905 at an estimated cost of $65,000.00. The building was demolished in 1973 for the Royal Bank Plaza, and the Gordon MacKay Company moved to North York, Ontario (north of Toronto).
Image 1: Aftermath of the 1904 fire: Front Street west of Bay, Toronto, April 20, 1904.
Image 2: 5-story warehouse, Bay and Front streets, Toronto, looking north, about 1946.
Advertising brochure of Puritone cabinet phonographs. (Collection of Bill & Betty Pratt)
Gordon MacKay 1922 catalogue
A Puritone phonograph for sale through Facebook Marketplace in Kawartha Lakes, Ontario in 2025. From the Gordon Mackay brochure this is the Queen Anne Model "G".
