Alba Gramopohone

[Steve]

It's hard to be sure with items like this we don't exactly see every day but I have a similar period Apollo cabinet machine with the internal record storage "bin" at the side of the turntable and that has the same identical rexine covering inside it!

Thanks for that Steve, if I had examined the rexine to the right of the record bin a bit closer I would have spotted the small transfer that surely is original.

Barry

Which I believe states "D/S Motor", meaning double-spring. Surely original as you say and also another indicator of quality.

[epigramophone]

One other issue I've noticed (and I could be wrong), is that there are castors fitted to the legs which I don't believe would be original and it looks to me that the legs might have been truncated during the process? I would have expected the legs to look a little taller and to extend further below the stretcher.

I agree that the castors are not original. No doubt they were added to make this heavy machine more manoeuvrable.
Here are pictures of two similar machines for comparison. Their legs look identical.
I also note that the light oak machine appears to have a veneered motor board, while the dark oak machine appears to have it covered in brown leathercloth like the example under discussion.

[Oedipus]

Epigramophone says: "The tonearm is a "Novaphonic", also available to purchase separately," but it isn't. It is much closer to the Gilbert's 'bugle', but subtly different from the normal pattern.

The Novaphonic is quite different, in that the rear section is fixed, and only the front part, a normal swan-neck arm, swivels. This avoids imposing the weight of a very large tone-arm on the record groove. (See For the Record 53, Spring 2015, for more info on these strange tone-arms)

I am attaching a photo of four tone-arms from 'Home Mechanic magazine, c. 1931, which shows the normal Gilbert bugle, second from left.

[poodling around]

Epigramophone says: "The tonearm is a "Novaphonic", also available to purchase separately," but it isn't. It is much closer to the Gilbert's 'bugle', but subtly different from the normal pattern.

The Novaphonic is quite different, in that the rear section is fixed, and only the front part, a normal swan-neck arm, swivels. This avoids imposing the weight of a very large tone-arm on the record groove. (See For the Record 53, Spring 2015, for more info on these strange tone-arms)

I am attaching a photo of four tone-arms from 'Home Mechanic magazine, c. 1931, which shows the normal Gilbert bugle, second from left.

I think you are correct.

I attach a couple of photo's of my Novaphonic portable gramophone - I think steve has the same Novaphonic portable model by the way .... he may say he was ill-advised at the time of purchase by some-one who shall remain nameless ha ha !

Anyway:

[Inigo]

Wouldn't it be the same as this one?

Or this, seems equal, from a Maxitone patts catalog