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I don't think that I have seen this one before. Presumably it was produced after the 5b soundbox ?

Thank you for any id help you can give.


https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Grafonola-Co ... rk:21:pf:0

This is an HMV No. 21 soundbox which was a rebadged Columbia 15a. In the UK it was used on the portable model 97 from 1935. It would pre-date the 5B.

Never mind the soundbox. Look at the machine to which it is (incorrectly) attached!

Here we have a rare Columbia No.111a-N in Brown Leather, costing £7.10s when new in 1929. The "N" suffix denotes nickel plated fittings, but for £9.9s it could be had with gold plated fittings as the No.111a-GP. The original soundbox was the Columbia No.9.

Note how much thicker the leather case covering is than the paper thin stuff used by HMV.

Despite being overrun with portables, I am tempted......

Thank you very much for the information jamiegramo.

and yes, epigramophone, it is a nice looking machine - I couldn't find much about the model on the internet. I must admit that I am liking Columbia gramophones the more I see them. Usually an HMV portable fan.

I am not on ebay (still), partly because I would buy too much and hope that you get it !

A word of warning if you are tempted to buy a Columbia portable. The 201, 202 and the little 100 all suffer from weakness at the point where the base of the arm meets the internal horn, because these joints are pot metal. If not actually broken, many of the joints have swollen out of shape, causing the arm to drop and be loose in it's socket. The 202 is also susceptible to breakage at the other end of the internal horn, where it can't be seen, but will be obvious as the horn will tend to "float" about. The other models, i.e. 109, 111, 112. 209 (and the"A" versions of these) have far better brass connections, and rarely give any problems. Take no notice when sellers say "Arm is broken, but can be easily fixed". Fixing them is far from easy, and in may cases is impossible. Later models (204, 106, 9000 etc) in fact anything that doesn't have that distinctive "plano-reflex arm, won't have this problem.

If anyone needs a plano-reflex arm let me know. I am trying to get rid of a very nice one, with the soundbox to match.

Charles

Phono48 wrote:A word of warning if you are tempted to buy a Columbia portable. The 201, 202 and the little 100 all suffer from weakness at the point where the base of the arm meets the internal horn, because these joints are pot metal. If not actually broken, many of the joints have swollen out of shape, causing the arm to drop and be loose in it's socket. The 202 is also susceptible to breakage at the other end of the internal horn, where it can't be seen, but will be obvious as the horn will tend to "float" about. The other models, i.e. 109, 111, 112. 209 (and the"A" versions of these) have far better brass connections, and rarely give any problems. Take no notice when sellers say "Arm is broken, but can be easily fixed". Fixing them is far from easy, and in may cases is impossible. Later models (204, 106, 9000 etc) in fact anything that doesn't have that distinctive "plano-reflex arm, won't have this problem.

Yes the 112A and 202 are difficult to repair when the lugs at the end of the long alloy horn break. I have done this repair twice.

On my brown crocodile 112A I was lucky because the broken parts were still there. I superglued them back together, drilled out the lugs and passed a threaded rod through the entire assembly, securing it with nuts and washers at each end. Superglue works well, as it penetrates the granular structure of the pot metal alloy.

I swore that I would never attempt this repair again until I saw and purchased my rare (unique?) green crocodile 112A, which was the subject of a recent thread. I was not so lucky that time. One of the broken lugs was missing, so I had to recreate the end of the long horn with aluminium tubing and Araldite. Had the 112A been a basic black one, I would not have considered it worth the time and effort.

As far as can be judged from the pictures, the 111A on eBay does not have this problem, but even careless handling in transit could spell disaster.