My one and only vintage gramophone.

[Viva-Tonal]

These Columbia portables are amongst some of the best sounding portables there are. Mine is a Columbia 112a - and believe me he sound is amazing for the size of machine. Lots of low tones and bass and a nice rounded upper sound too.

Most records sound good on these.

Mine also had the same lid sprung needle cover that goes over the needle pot when the main lid is down. The 112a also has that cool looking panaflex tone arm which was supposed to guide the sound more directly from the soundbox to the horn.

All in all this is a vry nice machine viva-tonal. Well worth getting the soundbox fully restored - you'll be blown away by the sound!

If yu want to see more Columbia portables (and lots more besides) then check out this forum which deals wih UK and european machines. There is a whole section on Columbia machines there:

http://gramophones.proboards.com/

RJ

Thanks! I've found that the lid of this machine acts as something of a soundboard for lows. The top end comes directly off the diaphragm, and the horn behaves as a default midrange.

PS--the Gramophones board is the one on which I found out what model this machine is (and I joined it as well!).

[eccentricgroove]

Thanks for the correction. I first heard that song in the Steve Martin, Bernadette Peters movie, Pennies From Heaven where they played a snippet.

Your Henry Hall looks like a west coast pressing. Sometime around 1930, the Bridgeport pressings lost the 1" ring around the center hole and a ring appears around the outer edge of the label. All the Royal Blue west coast pressings up to 1936 have the ring like yours. The label petered out in late 1936 with the two Benny Goodman reissues and Ted Louis at 3167D, 3168D and 3169D. When Bessie Smith died in the car accident, Columbia issued a memorial allbum with 6 ten inch discs in black shellac 3171D to 3176D and that was the last of the popular D series until CBS reactivated the label in 1939.

Fred

[MordEth]

Edit: Here's an attempt at photographing one of my all-blue ones.

Here’s my attempt at turning it into an avatar, in case you or someone else wants to use it:

I don’t think that it’s tremendously apparent that the shellac is blue in the avatar size, but I can always make a better one later. It’s in the ‘labels’ section of the stock avatar gallery (which may soon need to be broken up by label name into different chunks of the alphabet).

Thanks for sharing it with us!

— MordEth

[Viva-Tonal]

I'll try to make a better pic of it though.

[MordEth]

I'll try to make a better pic of it though.

My experience with trying to photograph record labels has been terrible (partially because I am a poor photographer, I think)—Lenoirstreetguy does much better with it than I ever have.

However, I’ve had a lot of luck with scanning record labels.

Besides, I can always replace the image later.

— MordEth

[Neophone]

Viva~tonal,

A beautiful machine! How exactly does the tone-arm stow away?

Kirk, I believe, many of the later EMI (?) portable had that efficient lid fastened needle cup top. It is a neat idea.

Regards,
John

[bart1927]

These Columbia portables are amongst some of the best sounding portables there are. Mine is a Columbia 112a - and believe me he sound is amazing for the size of machine. Lots of low tones and bass and a nice rounded upper sound too.

Most records sound good on these.

Mine also had the same lid sprung needle cover that goes over the needle pot when the main lid is down. The 112a also has that cool looking panaflex tone arm which was supposed to guide the sound more directly from the soundbox to the horn.

All in all this is a vry nice machine viva-tonal. Well worth getting the soundbox fully restored - you'll be blown away by the sound!

If yu want to see more Columbia portables (and lots more besides) then check out this forum which deals wih UK and european machines. There is a whole section on Columbia machines there:

http://gramophones.proboards.com/

RJ

I also have a Columbia Viva-Tonal portable, a 109 A. I bought it from a well-known dealer, so it didn´t require any maintenance. It also has the piano reflex tonearm. It sounds very good with acoustics, but I´m not really satisfied about the performance with electric recordings. I`m certainly not blown away by the sound, maybe by the volume, but not quality-wise. At higher volumes the sound gets very sharp, very metallic. I can solve it a little if I use only soft tone styli, but this results in very low playback volume (well, duh). Do you think a complete rebuild of the soundbox would remedy the situation, or is it just that I have unrealistic expectations about how good a portable should sound? I bought it from a person who deals exclusively in 78´s, cylinders, and vintage playback equipment, so I assume the soundbox is not in bad shape. The diagram looks allright, and the gaskets don`t look cracked or dried out. If a soundbox restoration should do the trick, who can you recommend? Also, what can I expect to pay for it?

Thanks for the advice,

Bart

PS: I should add that I only play early electrics (up until 1930), no Rock & Roll or Glenn Miller stuff!

[Viva-Tonal]

Viva~tonal,

A beautiful machine! How exactly does the tone-arm stow away?

Here's the part that holds the machine open:



That metal piece in centre rear has a small tab on it, that as the lid is opened, the arm and all it's mounted on raise up, and snaps into place, held up by this tab. It's all drawn upward apparently by the two metal bars going down into the sides, attached to the lid. The metal horn is pivoted in front.

Here's another shot of the machine, with the motorboard removed:



In this shot, I tried to get a close-up of the mechanism of the horn and how it engages a spring-loaded linkage that causes the two leaves to be drawn shut as the machine is closed up.



Here's a pair of shots of the motor:

[MordEth]

In this shot, I tried to get a close-up of the mechanism of the horn and how it engages a spring-loaded linkage that causes the two leaves to be drawn shut as the machine is closed up.

OK—I think I see it. As you close the lid, the front automatically closes up in front of the horn?

If so, that’s a very interesting bit of engineering on their part.

— MordEth

[Viva-Tonal]

Yes, the two leaves close up as the lid goes down.