HMV Model 87 portable, in...green color

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Inigo
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Re: HMV Model 87 portable, in...green color

Post by Inigo »

The governor plate disc should slide smooth on the governor axis. Light oil is indicated herein, not grease.
The old grease oozing from the motor must have entered into the governor and get it stuck. And as several cases are reported, this must be a design fault of this motor... Being so small, the greased parts are near the governor, and that's why the grease finally infects it. A suggestion would be to grease the spring sparingly, as also the other parts, maybe opening again for cleaning after a few runs when the motor has been regreased would help maintaining it clean...
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nostalgia
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Re: HMV Model 87 portable, in...green color

Post by nostalgia »

"toh", welcome to the forum:) I absolutely think your blue HMV model 87 is worth a mention, so if you feel like posting more photos of the machine, I hope you will do so. I have myself the green colored 87, and the blue is as you say, listed on the Norwegian gramophone museum site, but it would be nice to have some good photos of this blue machine also on our forum. Even if the model 87 is a very modest machine, it is still part of the HMV history, and taking care of these machines is of importance as I see it, and in particular a blue one.
The autobrake on the 87 has no anti return spring, it moves freely, and is only set into function by the tonearm movements. I have checked the same autobrake on my 97 ( autobrake no. 6a) and it looks exactly as your autobrake on your model 87. ( My green model 87 is in a storage locker so I can't check it right now). The difference is though, that model 97 has a manual brake, that holds the turntable in resting position when the machine is not in use. So, in total, the model 87 has this annyoance of the turntable moving when carrying the gramophone, if someone else more experienced than me in here comes up with something else. Out of curiosity I tried carrying both my 97 machines right now, and actually one of them was able to hold the turntable still when I carried it around, since the autobrake on one of the machines are harder to move sideways by some reason or another, and because of it also stays in resting position more easily than the exact same autobrake on the other 97. I guess it may be because one of the autobrakes have been oiled more in the past than the second brake.

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Re: HMV Model 87 portable, in...green color

Post by toh »

Thanks "nostalgia". I was actually a member here long time ago but during my inactivity my profile got "cleaned up".

I appreciate the answer. This is a bit annoying but tolerable now that I know it is a feature rather than a fault. This machine has a serial number 346 so it must be made quite early in the production? This machine is actually owned by a museum or one of its staff personally (I haven't asked) so it will be taken care of. The mainspring has been repaired in the past. It has probably been broken and is now shorter than it should be but it is still capable of playing one side of the record nicely (at correct speed) although it struggles more or less on some records that have higher resistance. The sound box is a Goldring Juwell Electro so I assume it is not original.

I attached some pictures. It was not in the best of conditions but a little glue and shoe polish did wonders. It still shows it age though.
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nostalgia
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Re: HMV Model 87 portable, in...green color

Post by nostalgia »

Thanks for posting photos, and nice to know the machine is in good hands.
The Goldring soundbox is as you also state, not original to this machine. If you have a look at the repair photos of the green colored 87 in this thread, you will see the original HMV No. 23 soundbox that followed also the blue 87 when it was new. There is however missing a gold colored HMV shield in the middle of the soundbox on my machine, it has fallen off at some stage during its lifespan.
Regarding the serial number, where did you find this number on your machine?

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Re: HMV Model 87 portable, in...green color

Post by toh »

The serial number is on the white tag under the turntable. At least I assume it is the serial number of the machine. Yours seems to be 13337, nostalgia.

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Re: HMV Model 87 portable, in...green color

Post by nostalgia »

Yes, that is the serial number, sorry I did not pay attention to that the label was visible on your photo.
Yes, that is a very low serial number and was an early production, my machine has, as you say a much higher serial number.

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Re: HMV Model 87 portable, in...green color

Post by toh »

This machine also doesn't have the needle cup and the speed control is on the other side. Maybe they changed this during the production?

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Re: HMV Model 87 portable, in...green color

Post by nostalgia »

Yes, these are good observatioons.
According to the excellent "His Master's Gramophone" book ( Proudfoot/Oakley), there were two variations of this Model 87. At one stage in production the Model 87A was introduced, and it has the needle bowl in front, right hand corner. The 87A also has a small needle cup cover that is attached to the upper right corner of the main lid on the machine, that covers the nedle cup when the main lid is closed. So my green machine is actually a 87A, while your machine, is a 87. This is actually also spotted on the white serial number label, where your machine is listed as a 87, while my machine has a "A" behind the 87.
Citing the book: " By the end of 1937, "87" had become "87A"

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Re: HMV Model 87 portable, in...green color

Post by toh »

Thanks for the info, nostalgia.

Despite being a low end machine, this one plays quite nicely. I did change the gaskets on the sound box and that improved the sound also.

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Re: HMV Model 87 portable, in...green color

Post by Oedipus »

The 'B/1' before the serial number indicates that this machine was made in 1937. The serial numbers were allocated in random blocs each year, so all the low number tells us is that the Model 87 had the lowest bloc of numbers in 1937, and this was an early example from that bloc.

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