The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

This is on Ebay (202227690616)
Does the front have anything to do with the back or is this a combination of two soundboxes ?

All the HMV 4s I have look like that... but that appears to be a mix of 4 and 5 parts.

It's just a few mis-matched parts. The front part and the chromium mask are from a No.5a, as is the mangled diaphragm, and the back is from a pot-metal No.4.

Difficult to understand but the bidding is up to £23 with 4 days to go !

Plus- the needle screw looks to have been snapped off in the needle bar, and the outer screws of the pivot bar are missing.
If this is an indication of how much a few odd bits fetch, then I'm gonna sort my spares out!

It looks like the diaphragm is intact and usable. In my opinion, it alone as a spare part is well worth the mentioned price. There is nobody (at least not that I know) reproducing faithful spare parts of aluminium diaphragms with spiders. I only know of new-old-stock generic spider-less leftover spares that are only very approximately interchangeable with period parts, and which resulting sound is only so-and-so.