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Hi guys,

Amazing forum you have here!

Could anybody give me a clue, please, about this machine I recently bought?
I attach the photo.

Anyway I found some sort of reference to Estella wufa gramophone, I think:
https://raadiotuba.and.ee/teised-grammofon.html

I am really lost here, or is it really an Estonian model?
Only has 2 marks, on the "cartridge" is written "electric" and the needle box "wufa"

It plays very good...

Thank you all very much

Welcome! I've never seen one of those before but it looks as though the manufacturers were going for an approximate copy of the HMV 101.

The "cartridge" is called a sound box (UK) or reproducer (US). "Electric" means it was designed for electrically recorded records.

Welcome Bruno! I don't think you'll get much information about your nice gramophone. There were literally hundreds of brands, most of them short-lived or almost family-based, that used to make portable gramophones very similar to yours: arm on top-right, internal horn hole on top-left with arm stand and crank clips, cursor speed regulation and manual brake, cheap but efficient third-party motor. I also own one (which belonged to my family), made in Italy, which obscure brand (Alpha) I had never come across anywhere else.

However, although belonging to this rather obscure "average" production, this Wufa has some nice twists, like the shellac wood finish on the top board (they're usually painted in a rather uninspiring way, or wallpapered) and the beautiful velvet turntable, which is unusually clean but not discolored, and the dark green fabrikoid finish. I also like how they took care to finish the horn hole with a thin frame: this kind of extra craftmanship is quite unusual on this type of machines. Although not belonging to the gotha of highly collectable units, this gramophone is definitely a "keeper".

To be honest, most of the times I am more amused by these gramophones than by many floor-standing HMVs, which look all nearly identical to each other and are mostly made in a furniture style that looked outdated even when new. (Somebody is going to kill me for having written this! )

You are not alone. With a few exceptions HMV's cabinet styling was drab and uninspired. To my eye the exceptions include the Sheraton Gramophone Grand, the Library Bijou Grand and the 510/511. The big Re-Entrants only look impressive because of their sheer size. Whatever their acoustic merits they are not an elegant design.

epigramophone wrote:You are not alone. With a few exceptions HMV's cabinet styling was drab and uninspired. To my eye the exceptions include the Sheraton Gramophone Grand, the Library Bijou Grand and the 510/511. The big Re-Entrants only look impressive because of their sheer size. Whatever their acoustic merits they are not an elegant design.

Portables are mostly drab boxes as well, with exception of the ones with external wood finish - see Epi's teak HMV 101 in another thread. The Victor VV-50 also looks good to me. Another one I like is the Parlophon designed by Vadasz (the one that made the Mikiphone) as a large cylindrical pillbox, with crackle metallic finish (mine is red, but there are other colors).