Alba Gramopohone

[fghr111]

Hello

I have found a gramophone for sale from Alba. I have not find too many info on these specific one , i thought it me be rare due to it unusual tone arm shape. Year of manufacturing could be from 1910-1926 or so.. The selling price is around 1100 euro ( in Europe) , what do you people think about this, it is worth buying it? Any idea of what model this is?

Thank you and Regards

P.S I have attached also a video with the gramophone, it sounds pretty good..

[Steve]

Excellent and adjustable Paillard "Alba" soundbox, excellent tone-arm and superb Garrard or possibly Collaro (?) motor. The cabinet appears to be good quality too but, the horn is quite small. It should sound quite good but will be limited by the size of horn. With that said, valuation on the Euro continent is very difficult to determine. Certainly in the UK this would struggle to raise more than an eyebrow at auction. It wouldn't make £50 on a good day, sad to say.

On the continent it can't be common so it's a very personal choice if you like it. The cost of shipping from UK would be astronomical so you're saving that at least!

[CarlosV]

On the continent it can't be common so it's a very personal choice if you like it. The cost of shipping from UK would be astronomical so you're saving that at least!

It is an unusual machine, with an arm resembling that of the Gilbert, but there is no market for such cabinets, be it in the UK or elsewhere. It may stay forever for sale, as I have seen with many gramophones of this size, or as Steve mentioned, someone with particular interest in an original piece may want to buy it, despite its astronomical price. And unless the buyer is willing to pick it up, shipment of such cabinet across Europe is not cheap neither.

[Steve]

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.

[epigramophone]

The tonearm is a "Novaphonic", also available to purchase separately :

viewtopic.php?t=54329&start=10

[Phono48]

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. the legs look far too short. I also could be wrong, but to me, that leather cloth interior looks very suspicious!

Barry

[Steve]

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. the legs look far too short. I also could be wrong, but to me, that leather cloth interior looks very suspicious!

Barry

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!

[Steve]

On the wider subject of "cabinet gramophones" and their lack of appeal to the average collector, I've always said that if I had a huge warehouse facility I would gladly start building a collection of them and open a museum dedicated to the cabinet machine. There are so many different shapes, sizes and styles of cabinet with various degrees of ingenuity where sound reproduction is concerned, that I doubt there would be much duplication in there. If I think about the current Alba machine, for example, I'm very sure I've never seen another example of it in over 34 years. Some of these cabinet models must be very rare now as many would have been scrapped long before there was any interest in preserving the past and some are really very good machines in their own right.

In my opinion, it's a great pity that many will still be broken down for spares and scrapped today.

[CarlosV]

On the wider subject of "cabinet gramophones" and their lack of appeal to the average collector, I've always said that if I had a huge warehouse facility I would gladly start building a collection of them and open a museum dedicated to the cabinet machine.

I agree with you, Steve, space is the key factor. It is easy to pile up 100 portables in a small room, but cabinets are another story. This explains why in the UK, with a host of original, rare and interesting machines like the one of the topic, the only cabinets that attract collectors are the EMG/Experts and the HMV reentrants due to their brand name and reputation. It is about the same situation everywhere.

[Phono48]

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