Hand Crank Phono Info Needed

[criageek]

I posted this over at the Antique Radio Forum in the Phonographs section, and it was suggested that I ask around over here, so here I am!

This weekend I picked up this very cool hand crank portable phono, and I'm looking for some info. Any idea what make and model this is? When it was built? How to maintain it? I've removed and disassembled the tonearm to clean it, and I've removed the platter which allowed me to remove the 'motor' mechanism. How far can I disassemble the motor mechanism? The only markings I've found anywhere are on the bottom of the 'motor' mechanism. I was told that there are videos available online showing how to maintain the motor mechanism...can someone point me to one?

Thanks for any input!

Rich

[Lucius1958]

The machine itself looks to be 1930s - 40s. The tone arm and reproducer, on the other hand, seem out of place to me, as if they had come off an older machine - I may be wrong on this, though.

Bill

[larryh]

Don't know a thing about it either for sure, it is an interesting item. It does seem it would have used the metal more electrical era arms? In the top photo there seems to be three evenly spaced small holes or marking, perhaps another later style was removed, possibly because it "hung up" in play, which so many late machines were prone too. I guess someone here will provide a photo or ad for it soon.

Larry

[criageek]

Thanks for the input guys...I appreciate it. To me it looks like this tone arm has always been mounted on this unit...the mounting holes like up perfectly and the clip to hold the needle end of it when not in use is in the right place. It's bent, but it's in the right place.

Rich

[larryh]

I have seen this style machine somewhere but I looked and looked on line at portable or suitcase phonographs and couldn't track down one exactly like it. However there is a great deal of squared off cases which used the same material and they mostly seemed to have the mica type tone arms, so it may not be as late as we thought?

[alang]

Welcome to the forum and congratulations to your phonograph! As stated before, your machine looks like it was probably made in the 1930s or 40s, which is way past the prime period for spring wound machines. At that time only portables were still made that way, everything else started to have electric motors. I am not aware of any YouTube videos specifically about how to repair such a late portable phonograph, but you can find several videos by searching for "phonograph mainspring repair". The motors will look a bit different, but the principles are the same. Be very careful when disassembling the motor, the mainsprings pack a lot of power and can hurt you or damage stuff when let loose. IMPORTANT: always make sure that the motor is completely unwound before starting to disassemble any part of the motor!!! You can find lots of instructions about motor and spring maintenance on this forum as well using the search feature.

Good luck!
Andreas

[drh]

For whatever it's worth, my mother, who grew up in the 1930s, had a suitcase from her girlhood that was covered in that style of fabric; from what she said, bags of that style were commonly known as "Amelia Earhart" bags.

[estott]

Thanks for the input guys...I appreciate it. To me it looks like this tone arm has always been mounted on this unit...the mounting holes like up perfectly and the clip to hold the needle end of it when not in use is in the right place. It's bent, but it's in the right place.

Rich

I've seen an arm like that on a 20's portable from Dayton Ohio. My feeling is that some maker in the 30's put this together to use up some old parts in an up to date case. General Industries started in 1903 as the Garford Manufacturing Co. & had been making phonograph motors since the 1900's. They probably made this. The company was still in business until a few years ago making electric & mechanical components, they closed up & the building burned.

[Curt A]

The General Phonograph Company of Elyria, Ohio operated from 1920 until the early 1930's, probably ceasing production after the start of the great depression in 1929. This company manufactured numerous children's phonographs including Garford, Genola and Baby machines. Starting in 1933 they manufactured automobile horns for Ford, fishing reels, spring motors and bakelite moldings. The old plant burned down in July of 2008.

[OrthoFan]

I've seen several like this one over the years.

As noted, the tonearm/reproducer that came with your phonograph is from an earlier era--late teens to mid-1920s. It was produced at the time that Victor, etc., still controlled the tapered tonearm patents. (SEE: https://www.antiquephono.org/brand-talk ... j-wakeman/ )

I had a chance to do a little "Googling," and spotted this one which matches the one you have, and shows the original tonearm and sound box. (Don't know about the crank.) :

FROM: https://www.pinterest.com/vincenzomereu ... h-antique/


Here's a a similar--though not identical--model from a 1940 ad:

Capture.JPG (75.03 KiB) Viewed 757 times

FROM: https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/nqkAAOSw ... -l1600.jpg


HTH,
OrthoFan