Hello,
I recently for a Victrola VV-XVIII that looks really nice until you open the lid. Someone pulled the original motor out of it and replaced it with a 1960's phonograph. They basically ruined the motor board and the board that the tone arm attaches to. I'd still like to buy it but what is a fair price to offer for it? The owner claims to not have known about the modifications. They are asking too much for it the way it is now. Any thoughts?
A Victrola XVI from the same era has the same motor, tone arm, and so forth. It shouldn't be as much trouble to replace that stuff as you might think. And the crank hole escutcheon is the same on the XVI from those years as well. The wood around the motor board, including the motor board is just poplar or some other 'white wood' and you shouldn't have too much trouble plugging the holes and making it look pretty nice again. Looks to be in pretty nice shape.
I went through that with the XVIII that I have, but at least on mine they didn't drill all those holes in it for controls. I had to take a hand plane and shave a little bit off the sides of the XVI motor board I ended up using and it dropped right in and works just fine. Nice find there! Hopefully, he doesn't want and arm and a leg for it. I see someone also added an extra set of shelves in the record storage area as well.
It also looks like the rear I(cast iron) part of the horn is missing as well. I'm pretty sure I have one of those if you end up needing it. I gave $350 for the project I took on, if that helps you any on price. I'm not sure what a decent XVIII is going for these days, so you might want to do the math backwards and figure out a price on it.
I agree with Earl on this project. The mechanical parts from a Victrola XVI from the same era is the same for an XVIII. The key words are the same era or same time period. Jerry B.
Thanks for all the advice. The machine ended up coming home with me tonight. Turned out there was also a radio inside which made the thing pretty heavy. I spent the last hour cutting out everything that’s not suppose to be there and it was a pretty big pile of stuff. The extra set of shelves were just sitting there not attached to anything so I took them out too. It’s going to be a little work replacing the wood around the motor board but I think it could be done. What a pretty machine!! I’m happy I got it. Now the search for the missing parts
Vollema might have motors and arms. Or you could find one that the termites got to first. This one could end up as quite the showpiece--there can't be that many more of them out there.
I’ve been talking to him but I don’t think we’re going to strike a deal. The tone arm and reproducer are broken. Plus shipping is super high for only being 3 hours away from me.
If you can't find it here on the forum, check with George Vollema in Michigan, he seems to have these harder to find parts. His website is www.victroladoctor.com
I would stay away from this seller. Look at his feedback. Along with the high shipping,it will probably getting busted with his poor backing. You would be out of over $200.00 for a pile of junk.
Harvey Kravitz
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