HMV 101..black or dark blue?

[nostalgia]

I bought this HMV 101 cheaply two weeks ago, to use it for spares and donor parts. I did not even open the lid when buying it, but today I picked it up to potentially use some governor parts from it since I today will service a HMV 101. I now however think I will abstain from that, because the machine looks much better than I at first expected, and when opening the lid, the decision to just service it and keep/sell it as a complete machine seems a much better solution.
Did the black HMV 101 ever come with a black non wood motor board? I have only seen wooden motor boards on the other black 101s that I keep in my collection, and also when checking the books, I can't find a similar black 101.
Also, the turntable has blue felt, but it can of course have been swapped in the past.
Could this be a dark blue 101? It looks very black to me, but the motor board puzzles me. I actually bought another blue hmv 101 early this spring that I showed here on photos, that I at first thought was dark blue, but it turned out to be light blue.

With this machine it however can only be two options, black or dark blue. If it is dark blue, it will definitely be a keeper.

I took a couple more photos outdoors. It looks very black, but..? I have some reasons to believe this machine might has been used by the German forces during WW2, some records/covers came along with it,that points in that direction. It also has some peculiar markings on it...

[Phono48]

Definitely dark blue. The blue motorboard and blue turntable felt are the clues, plus black machines never had nickel plated corner shields, lid clasps, winding escutcheons etc., they were always black. Also, look at the mouth of the internal horn, which should also be dark blue.

Barry

[nostalgia]

Thank you, Barry. I did not think about the corner shields etc, I became too upset when opening the lid 30 minutes ago.
There is also another sign that it is dark blue, even if the rexine is 99% complete on the covering, there is a tiny tear close to the carrying handle, and it is showing a blue color from the inside.
Thist was quite a surprising find on a Sunday morning. I will bring the machine with me to the service room, I am finishing up with a pristine looking black 101 that came my way also earlier this summer, and it will be a natural follow up to also clean up and re grease this dark blue 101, before starting on the Columbias.

I will post some more photos after the clean up, hopefully it can reveal more of the dark blue color.

Martin

[epigramophone]

The 101 was only available in dark blue for a few months in 1928/29 and is consequently one of the less commonly found colours.
It proved unpopular because of it's similarity to black, and was replaced by a lighter blue version which lasted for the remainder of the 101's production life.

[nostalgia]

I thought it could be of interest to look how close the black and dark blue color are on this machine, so I took several photos.
After several added layers of Swarfega the dark blue color slowly became visible, but I was also worried to clean too much, to potentially remove the dark blue color. There is a thin line here before potentially ruining it, remembering cleaning my light blue 101 this spring, where the blue color finally started to become visible on the rags.

I may clean a bit more on the casing, but wanted it to dry up for some hours first, since the Swarfega contains quite some water.
It is really hard on the photos taken outdoors to see the difference, I asked an old friend, and she picked the wrong machine, when I asked which machine was dark blue. From another viewing angle though, it was easier to separate them, when just thinking about the colors, and not the nickel plated corner shields etc.

The black 101 is like new, I bought it without having seen it in advance a few backs, also originally bought as a donor machine. I doubt it has played more than 10 records in total, and will be a keeper. I also serviced it the last two days, and the dark blue 101 will be serviced this upcoming week. Both machines are cleaned and polished, while the dark blue machine will also receive some rust treatment on the lock to make it really shine. The black 101 has not traces on rust on it at all.

[Oedipus]

The information on the date of the dark blue 101 is clearly lifted from 'His Master's Gramophone' (page 200),but the reason for its short life being its resemblance to black is not certain; it is put forward in the book merely as a probability, not a fact.

Re nickelled corner shields, the early (front-wind) 101s, which were all black in the home market, had these. Black nickel came in with the side-wind versions.

[epigramophone]

The information on the date of the dark blue 101 is clearly lifted from 'His Master's Gramophone' (page 200),but the reason for its short life being its resemblance to black is not certain; it is put forward in the book merely as a probability, not a fact.

Re nickelled corner shields, the early (front-wind) 101s, which were all black in the home market, had these. Black nickel came in with the side-wind versions.

Sorry Christopher. I always try to acknowledge HMG, but on this occasion I was in too much of a hurry and forgot .

[Oedipus]

That's all right, Roger. It is important to quote sources, so that future historians who may have reason (rightly or wrongly) to query information can track it down -- and it is equally important to quote it correctly. Otherwise, myths start ....