The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I see this machine has reappeared. The seller has put more effort into his pictures than the auction house and these do reveal a rather beaten up horn. I think the sellers hope of making a grand on the machine is a little ambitious especially considering the parts that are not correct.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/313680155470 ... nl%3Dmkcid

That's got to be worth £200 of anyones money.

Check the spring barrel marking - looks like 10 (feet). If this is correct it carries budget length springs normally only used for portables, suggesting a cheapo Indian origin ??.
32 Motors are equipped with 13, 15 or if you are very lucky, 17 feet springs. My 13 footers (cleaned, re-greased and fully wound) only manage about 5 minutes of "useful" tension and another minute or so of "rundown" so this thing will probably have a severely restricted running duration.
The horn is a joke and the soundbox a bit ratty so, even £200 seems optimistic....

I didn't know the markings on the spring barrels of hmv and Victor motors no32 and 34 were the length of springs. I've seen 12, and X. Does this mean 12 and 10 feet springs? I never suspected that springs for these motors were made in different lengths... I thought it was a standard length. ..
In other side of things, a spring 17 feet long is almost 6 meters : I doubt any Victor or hmv machine no32/34 motor can take such a long spring, it wouldn't fit into the barrel. I've not known of any motor taking such springs except the Edison DD player!

Inigo wrote: ↑Wed Sep 22, 2021 1:08 pm In other side of things, a spring 17 feet long is almost 6 meters : I doubt any Victor or hmv machine no32/34 motor can take such a long spring, it wouldn't fit into the barrel. I've not known of any motor taking such springs except the Edison DD player!

Check out the chart here. Quite a few 17' shown.

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=49338

That changes all my previous ideas! All the big motors have 17 feet springs!
How wrong was I!!
My no34 motor runs for 20 minutes, and has four springs. .. SSo tthey are almost 6 meters long each one!! I thought they were half of that length! Truly, I never had the curiosity of measuring one!
For sure I'll do next time I take out one of those springs...

Springs in HMV 32 and 34 motors are not necessarily the same as Victors. From memory, the early 32 motors came with either 10 ft or 18 ft springs (depending on the size and cost of the machine), but these two extremes were later abandoned. In the 1926 machines (No 4 sound box) the springs seem to be either 13 or 15 ft, though I think (and I could be wrong!) that the springs in the 34 motor are 12 or 12 ft 6 in. Later on (post WW2), EMI still supplied spares for acoustic gramophones, and the 1 ¼- inch spring seems then to have come in a one-size-fits-all 13 ft 6in. Some of these were still in stock when EMI sold off all their old spares in 1962 to a firm called RDI, which put them on the market in the early 1970s, and I was able to buy some of these new old stock springs (all used up many years ago!)