The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I found these photos online, of a red HMV model 100 portable. It obviously was sold on Ebay UK in the past, but when searching on Ebay's
past listing, I am not able to retrace it. I am not exactly sure how this advanced search is working, maybe it shows only recent sales back to a certain date.
Anyway, according to the "HMV portable book" by Dave Cooper, and also the " His Masters Gramophone" book, this model was never manufactured in red?

Both the Dave Cooper book and "His Master's Gramophone" state that in the UK the HMV100 was only available in black. The only other version was the Tropical Teak model assembled in HMV's Calcutta factory for the Indian market. Even the HMV101 was only available in these same two versions until mid 1927, when coloured variants first appeared.

The machine pictured appears to have been heavily restored and, I suspect, re-coloured.

Yes, it must have been re-coloured...

The red paint is indeed a later sinn. For the sake of completeness I'd like to point to the other versions of the Model 100, the french version in solid oak.



There was also a tropical teak version with the bigger 32 motor, this was most likely not called Model 100, but the history on tropical machines is by no means well explored.

Thank you for posting these pictures of the model 100. I always find it very informative when someone post photos in this way, and this time also of a rather hard to find HMV model.

The French Model 100 appears to be of identical construction to the Tropical Teak version, i.e. with expansion joints in the panelling to withstand the tropical climate.
It almost looks like a Teak machine which has been darkened, but if it has the "La Voix de son Maitre" lid transfer (does it?) it must be genuine and very rare.