A speartip Victor horn in need of help

[snallast]

This horn (an American horn with a Victor logo) looks really sad on this otherwise very nice gramophone *Yes the gramophone is European, but the horn is American so I chose this forum*. On the back part some of the finish seems to have been simply worn off by handling. There the wood looks great, and the same colour as the rest of the machine (walnut) and you can see the grain. On the front the horn is almost black, you see no grain, it's all cracked up and dark and not very nice. See pictures!

What to do? I hate messing with original finishes! But it does not look nice this way either. Does anyone know if these horns originally came in walnut also? Could this darker finish be some kind of varnish gone dark through time?

Suggestions? Greatful for all points of view!!

[gramophone78]

Actually the horn is a UK made version of a US spear-tip... . The decal is a dead give away. You could try some colored wax to try and even out the fading. However, unless you use a colored shellac.....it will still be uneven. Based on the over all condition......you really should leave well enough alone. If you are not experience in working with finishing products....you could make a real mess really fast.
adding a permanent finish will only decrease it's value.
However, it is a personal call on your part.

[martinola]

Snallast, I'm with gramophone78 on this: better not to do any permanent change. I would try to clean it up gently with Kotton Kleanser or GoJo or the like, followed up by some careful waxing. I'm sure that it would make it more presentable. I think the interior could clean up well that way. For my own part, I kind of like how it looks with your machine.

The wood on the horn looks rather like mahogany to me. The dark finish looks like an aged red mahoghany finish. Could the rest of the machine actually be mahogany but without the dark red stain? Perhaps a very old finish re-do? Anyway, very cool machine and horn. I'd be proud to have them in my collection.

Regards,

Martin

[snallast]

Yes at first I thoght so too - but looking closer at the pictures you can see the Victor Talking Machine logo underneath the dog logo - and they both look old. I can also make out "marca registrada" which might mean they had these horns on export from the USA to - South America? Spain? Europe and South America in general? It looks like they simply pasted the dog logo over the Victor logo to me. What do you say?

As for the box, yes it's been slightly more red (I took the back bracket off and there found the finish untouched by light and time) but just slightly, I'll post pictures as soon as I can take them. Sort of the colour that's on the top of the picture with the faded "GRAMMOPHON" transfer. Exactly the colour of the horn on the parts that are worn.

Here also are some closeups of the inside of the horn. I doubt that it will clean up, it isn't really dirt, seems more that the varnish or whatever it is has darkened and cracked a lot. One does definitely not see any sign of wood through it.

Still you might be right that it's better not to do anything other than clean and wax it or polish or the like. I'm at a loss here right now...

[martinola]

Hi Snallast.

Thanks for the additional photos. The over-pasted decal is very cool. This machine has some history to it! Looking at the close-up of the case, the grain really looks like mahogany. The over-all color looks to be a result of fading from UV light. Perhaps it was displayed in a window for a long time. It appears that the top and mouth of the horn was protected - maybe by a shawl or some other covering.

I think you'll be surprised at how much better it will look with a little cleaning and waxing. I've used Howard's Feed-n-wax on finishes like that and it will temporarily result in showing the grain better. If you are very, very careful, you might try to use 800 grit wet/dry sandpaper (with mineral oil for lubrication) on the very worst of the alligatoring. What one would be doing in that case is to flatten out the very tops of the alligatoring to allow more light to pass through.

However one has to be extremely careful not to cut through the colored finish - especially at any edges. Best to try it out first on a cheaper, common machine. I did it to my VV-110 and it helped make it look a lot less muddy. I did however break through the color at a couple of the edges which required touching-up with a a bit of stain. As I said, you wouldn't want to try this with the horn until you had some practice (and certainly not go anywhere near the decal).

Again, very nice machine. I'll be interested in seeing your progress.

Best Regards,

Martin

[Starkton]

The horn is walnut, partly bleached from the sun as it seems. Great that the decal is still there.

[snallast]

Thanks for your tips Martin! Here are 2 pics of how the wood looks behind the back bracket on the box - my initial thought was to maybe get the horn to match this colour - which seems to be the original. And Starkton - I agree - the horn looks like walnut. Why would they tint it redder I wonder, when the wood itself seems to match the box?

[martinola]

Starkton - Upon viewing the back bracket area photo, I agree with you, the machine case does appear to be walnut. I'm still not convinced that the horn isn't mahogany - at least it appears that it received the red finish associated with mahogany. It's really hard to tell without being able to see the grain. Was this horn maybe an early upgrade? Even though the finishes appear to be mis-matched, it's a very neat machine.

Regards,

Martin

[gramophone78]

You see how important good pics are when asking "what do I have here??". An export horn...no question that may have been for the local market and then changed. I would say a mahogany horn for sure.

[snallast]

I agree, I mean on how important it is to have good pictures! Here are some more pictures of the outside part of the horn where the shellac is worn off by handling - since 1911 according to one of our members - . I think you can see the grain quite well?