'The One That Got Away' thread

[FellowCollector]

Awesome story, George. You definitely have a gift for writing that truly captivates the audience with vivid and interesting details that make the story come to life. I suspect that two hundred dollars was still likely not a "steal" in 1979 for this machine so perhaps you can relax a bit knowing that at least the old German gent didn't totally give it away! And I have to wonder why the old gent pigeon holed it (literally? ) to a chicken coop of all places!

Doug

[Valecnik]

I suspect that two hundred dollars was still likely not a "steal" in 1979 for this machine so perhaps you can relax a bit knowing that at least the old German gent didn't totally give it away!

Doug

Doug, you raise a good point. I could probably go through some of the old Jerry's Musical News or Maps and look but it's not like one was even advertised for sale very often. A would guess would be $900-$1500??? But then the records would be worth a bit too esp. the royal purples. I suppose an Opera in good original condition would command $2500? So if I'm close, $200 would not be a freebie but would still be a very good deal.

[phonogfp]

Doug and Bruce, you fellows are awfully charitable in rationalizing my ignorance!

George P.

[FellowCollector]

Ha! Good one, George. I still have to wonder about the cabinet condition of that Edison in the chicken coop and why it was there instead of in the gent's barn or ??. Anyway, 'nother quick story. One fine summer day in 1993 my wife told me she'd received a call from a man who had some old records he wanted to sell. At this time in my collecting I figured that I had plenty of records (my wife CERTAINLY would have agreed with that statement as well!) but I thought what the heck - nothing ventured nothing gained. He might have some interesting records. I called the gent and we set a time for the next Saturday morning to meet. I asked a buddy of mine with a pickup truck if he'd go too as the gent indicated there were hundreds. So we arrived and the gent motioned for us to take the truck right past his house over the lawn and pull up next to an abandoned 1950's vintage mobile home behind his home. We got out and he unlocked the door. It smelled pretty bad in the mobile home but that's the price you pay sometimes I guess. After a while we got used to it. Anyway, he lead us to a back bedroom where we saw piles and piles of 78's. "Take everything. Hundred bucks for it all." I figured there were at least 2,000 records there and a quick sampling indicated that the majority were pre-1930 popular selections. It was wickedly hot in that bedroom so my buddy and I made lots of trips back and forth to his truck not really looking at any labels or titles. We just wanted to get the heck out of there before it got REALLY hot and as mentioned it didn't smell too great in there. When we were all done we were ridin' pretty low in the rear end of my buddy's truck and I paid the gent. Before we left for home (about 30 minutes away thankfully!) the gent said, "Oh, by the way did you find those weird records that in there that said 'MARCONI' on them? There's about 30 or more that should have been in that bedroom." I said, "We didn't stop to look but those sound interesting...Thanks!" Now, of course, I knew of the scarcity of Marconi records as I had a precious few already in my collection so I was thrilled to hear that we may have some in the back of the truck. We got back to my home and unloaded all the records and I paid my buddy for his time and gas and then I began looking through the records. By the next day I was done and, while I found some excellent early records there were no Marconi records at all in the group. I called the man back. "Hi there! Say, I never found any of the Marconi's at all in that entire group." "Ohhhh...well maybe I already sold them...but I could swear they were in that trailer...I'll take a look sometime if I get a chance." "Would you please give me a call if you ever find those?" "Will do!" I figured at that point that the guy was full of baloney and abandoned any further contact on the Marconi's. Then, about a year later I saw an ad in the garage sale section that listed this guy's address and he indicated "OLD RECORDS" among the items in his garage sale. I found his telephone number and called him up. "Hey there! This is Doug...the guy that bought your old records a year ago. I see you have more." "Oh....yeah...I remember you. You know I found those Marconi records a few days ago and put 'em in my garage sale. Guy from Vermont stopped in this morning and bought all of 'em. There were around 40 of them in their original sleeves and he paid a dollar apiece for them!" OHHHHHHHH the pain....

[ChuckA]

George,

It's funny that your Amberola story was from Stroudsburg. My "wish I could do it over" was also in Stroudsburg, this was around 1974, I went to a house auction on Queen St. The auction ad just said old phonograph and back then I would hit anything that mentioned the words "phonograph", Edison" or "records". When I got to the house I wandered around looking for the phonograph, finally out in the back yard was the most beautiful machine I had ever seen, a mahogany cylinder machine with a mahogany horn sitting on a matching mahogany cabinet. I RAN to this piece of beauty to find what it was, no wasn't an Opera. It was a Columbia BGT, like it just came out of the store, the cabinet was filled with records, the bottom drawer filled with 6" Columbia's.

I stood guard over that machine until sale time, I was sure I was going to go home with it. The bidding started and I jumped right in for the $25 start, I kept bidding up to $600 (remember this was 1974) knowing I didn't even have that much money with me, also knowing my wife would have my hide if I went any higher I had to let it go. Kicked myself for months after that.


A month or so later I was at an auction and not having enough money with me didn't stop me from buying a Zonophone Concert Grand, just had to work out a deal with the auctioneer.



Chuck

[Lenoirstreetguy]

The Tales of the Amberola 1B's made me remember mine from my callow youth. One of my classmates in my residence at university, who knew that I collected old records mentioned a cylinder machine that was at her grandmother's house. Grandma had gone to "the home" and the family was in the process of getting rid of the contents of her house. I perked up when Joanne (my buddy) said "Yeah, it's really weird because instead of the pickup moving over the record, the record moves under the pickup ...the cabinet is huge too." I realized of course that it had to be an Amberola 1B. But after all the all fol de rol of making offers and arranging to rent a truck to drive to 100 miles to Orillia, at the eleventh hour her uncle decided that since a young university kid was interested in the machine that it had to be worth more than they had agreed to sell it for and he decided to keep it. Not ask me to pay more which I would have done...oh no...but to scuttle the whole transaction.
So this was a case of "damned if you do and damned if you don't." Had I been one of the local yokels I probably could have had it for $ 50 and a case of beer.
Grrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!

Jim