Prices in the past

[TinfoilPhono]

I've been collecting for a long time and I have a lot of old publications with classified ads, as well as price lists sent by collectors and dealers from the 1960s to the 1990s. It's fun to look back at them from time to time. I've often thought about writing an article about the way that values have changed over the years. I have a massive amount of data but sorting through it would be a huge task. Maybe someday....

Tonight I was reading some 1974 issues of the Antique Phonograph Monthly and marveling at some of the ads. I hate to say that we were naive back then, but actually we all were. No one knew what was truly rare and what wasn't. Just one example out of hundreds: an ad selling a mint pre-dog Victor R for $395 and a Columbia Eagle for $275. Neither is particularly expensive today but the disparity is far wider now than then.

But the one that prompted me to make this post was an offer to trade a Columbia BS coin-op for a Berliner lever-wind. That may have seemed like a reasonable trade 44 years ago but today there is well over $10,000 disparity between those phonographs.

That brought up an ugly memory for me. I desperately wanted a coin-op in the 60s and 70s and finally had a chance to get one in 1979. I made a deal for a very nice BS, but with repro signboard and no horn. What did I give up for it? A Zonophone A (without horn), an Edison Standard D with oak cygnet horn (mint), and two flawless Edison Concert cylinders.........

For years I couldn't even bring myself to admit that I was so royally screwed. But, at the time, that really seemed like a reasonable deal. Now I just accept that I let myself be taken advantage of out of naiveté and blind lust for a machine I'd wanted for 15 years.

Suffice it to say, we didn't have the resources then that we enjoy now!

[epigramophone]

The February 1965 issue of the Hillandale News contained an article complaining about the "extravagant" prices asked for some machines, and warned members against offering to buy them at those "much inflated" prices, even if the vendor was open to offers. The prices which had outraged the writer of the article were :

Edison Opera £120, Amberola (no model mentioned) £75, Home £50 and Standard £30.

[phonogfp]

That brought up an ugly memory for me. I desperately wanted a coin-op in the 60s and 70s and finally had a chance to get one in 1979. I made a deal for a very nice BS, but with repro signboard and no horn. What did I give up for it? A Zonophone A (without horn), an Edison Standard D with oak cygnet horn (mint), and two flawless Edison Concert cylinders.........

For years I couldn't even bring myself to admit that I was so royally screwed. But, at the time, that really seemed like a reasonable deal. Now I just accept that I let myself be taken advantage of out of naiveté and blind lust for a machine I'd wanted for 15 years.

Suffice it to say, we didn't have the resources then that we enjoy now!

Oh, ain't it the truth...

Back in 1973, I had yet to encounter a key-wound machine (Eagle, Q, or Gem). I was so anxious to obtain one, that I was easy prey for a more informed collector who offered me a 2nd model caseless Q with reproduction key and reproduction reproducer. For that, and a Standard X with a shortened mainspring, I happily divested myself of an early (2-governor weights) Berliner Improved Gramophone with all-original parts including a nice funnel-type horn (but missing crank and record clamp). Ouch!

A few months later, I realized my folly. That was my lesson in the value of education.

George P.

[JerryVan]

I've been collecting for a long time and I have a lot of old publications with classified ads, as well as price lists sent by collectors and dealers from the 1960s to the 1990s. It's fun to look back at them from time to time. I've often thought about writing an article about the way that values have changed over the years. I have a massive amount of data but sorting through it would be a huge task. Maybe someday....

Tonight I was reading some 1974 issues of the Antique Phonograph Monthly and marveling at some of the ads. I hate to say that we were naive back then, but actually we all were. No one knew what was truly rare and what wasn't. Just one example out of hundreds: an ad selling a mint pre-dog Victor R for $395 and a Columbia Eagle for $275. Neither is particularly expensive today but the disparity is far wider now than then.

But the one that prompted me to make this post was an offer to trade a Columbia BS coin-op for a Berliner lever-wind. That may have seemed like a reasonable trade 44 years ago but today there is well over $10,000 disparity between those phonographs.

That brought up an ugly memory for me. I desperately wanted a coin-op in the 60s and 70s and finally had a chance to get one in 1979. I made a deal for a very nice BS, but with repro signboard and no horn. What did I give up for it? A Zonophone A (without horn), an Edison Standard D with oak cygnet horn (mint), and two flawless Edison Concert cylinders.........

For years I couldn't even bring myself to admit that I was so royally screwed. But, at the time, that really seemed like a reasonable deal. Now I just accept that I let myself be taken advantage of out of naiveté and blind lust for a machine I'd wanted for 15 years.

Suffice it to say, we didn't have the resources then that we enjoy now!

As a young collector, I too was the "victim" of a lopsided trade. A nice Columbia BI, plus $100 cash, for a shabby Standard Model A disc machine. A "well respected", seasoned collector took advantage of a young guy who didn't know any better. Sad.

As for old-time prices, when I first started collecting, at about 16 years old, I drooled over a Zonophone Model A, priced at $1400. Actually had the chance to buy 2 at that price. Wow, that was an astronomical price to me at the time. Fast forward 35 years, they still seem to be priced astronomically high, (to me). I'll admit, I've paid more than the current Zono A asking price for other machines, but the ones I saw so many years ago, priced at $1400, will not let me pay the current price. Guess I'm doomed to be without one

[Chuck]

Back around 1979 looking in The Antique Trader Weekly,
I seem to recall Edison Triumph machines priced at
around $450 or so.

I thought at the time that was way high.

[CharliePhono]

I was a subscriber to the APM back in the 70s. I do recall seeing an ad around 1974 or so for a maroon Gem, complete and unmolested with matching horn for $400 and thinking that was an outrageous price!

Anyone recall how some of us would call it the "Antique Phonograph (Almost) Monthly?" Seems it never arrived on time or well into the month following the month it was supposed to be for. Still, a most enjoyable and informative publication (probably the only one of its kind until Tim Gracyk and Martin Bryan's publications came along) and was always eagerly anticipated (almost)every month. By the way, the APM is archived at archive.org.

Charlie

[gramophone-georg]

I was a subscriber to the APM back in the 70s. I do recall seeing an ad around 1974 or so for a maroon Gem, complete and unmolested with matching horn for $400 and thinking that was an outrageous price!

Anyone recall how some of us would call it the "Antique Phonograph (Almost) Monthly?" Seems it never arrived on time or well into the month following the month it was supposed to be for. Still, a most enjoyable and informative publication (probably the only one of its kind until Tim Gracyk and Martin Bryan's publications came along) and was always eagerly anticipated (almost)every month. By the way, the APM is archived at archive.org.

Charlie

Would you pay $2011 for that machine today? still high, I think, but maybe not if it was all nice and correct.

Chuck's Triumph would be $1536 today.

Rene's pre- dog Victor R would be $1896 today, and the Eagle would be $1383.

Sometimes the "good old days" seem better than they were, sometimes they may have been even better.

Here, have fun with it:

http://www.in2013dollars.com/1974-dolla ... amount=275

[EdiBrunsVic]

Back in the late 1960s when I was in high school, I remember wondering if I could afford an Amberola 30 priced at $70.00.
My father thought it was somewhat of a stretch writing a check for my first phonograph, a VV-50 priced at $25.00, and many antique shops and swap meets sold old records for between 25 cents and about a dollar each. My first job as a part time delivery clerk at a pharmacy helped me earn some money. The pay was $1.65 an hour. Gas was selling for less than 40 cents a gallon.

[52089]

In the mid-1970s, my sister was in college in Northampton, Mass. My mother blew her top a bit in public one day while we were visiting. Why? The local Hilton had raised its nightly rate from $19 to $21!

Of course this is the same person who made $15 a week as an executive secretary in Manhattan in the early 1940s...

[GregVTLA]

Wow, isn't this a difficult topic to read! I sympathize with all of you that have been burned. Makes me want to be extra careful the same doesn't happen to me!