How did your collecting begin?

[fmblizz]

I was in a horrible car accident and hit my head about 25 years ago. Doctor's said I had daim bramage. When I woke up and got out of the hospital I just started buying old phonographs for no rhyme or reason. Different therapist all said it is some type of compulsive disorder like the've never seen.

Wife said if I don't stop buying she's leaving.

Really gone to miss her...

LOL

Blizz

[52089]

When I was about 6, I went to visit my grandfather's summer cottage for the first time and saw my first Victrola there. I was already obsessed with records, but seeing this machine that played them without electricity was a revelation. Two years later, my grade school class took a trip to the Edison site in New Jersey, where I saw my first cylinder machine. Much as I liked grandpa's Victrola, I was totally in love with the cylinder player and knew I would have one someday.

"Someday" happened in my mid-teens when, to my huge surprise, while riding in a car near my house, I saw what looked like an entire store devoted solely to old phonographs. Indeed, this was Dennis and Patti Valente's store, a place I came to know very well. After saving my pennies, I eventually bought a long case model A Home that ran well but was in need of refinishing. I still have it! Dennis and Patti sold me several machines (and bought a couple from me as well) over the next 10 years before they had to close their shop due to a huge rent increase. They now run APSCO.

[Damfino59]

I think this is a good place as any to introduce myself, as I've lurked here for some time.

I've always had a fondness for records and it was around 1969 that I purchased my first actual 78 when visiting a junk shop with my parents. The record was "Moonlight and Roses" sung by John McCormack. I knew it has to be old as the red seal batwing label said Victrola! Pretty soon I was able to save up some pocket change and find additional 78s at the old Wheeling flea market out side of Chicago. Next came the Birch portable, Victrola #210 and as we know several others!

I even have a youTube channel and when I do get the time do try to add to it. But as we know there never is enough time in the day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPZD_Wu4uhs

[Victrolacollector]

My collecting began, when my great grandmother in 1977 (I was 4) showed me her Phono/AM tabletop by Travler, it was a electric machine and she had a few stacks of these fast spinning records (78's). The genre was mostly country from the 1940s and the 1950's. My grandmother and grandfather purchased me a small kiddie phonograph with alot of those Disney records (10" running at 33 rpm). I liked music and did not like the fact my kiddie record player could only play two speeds ( 33 and 45 ) and not my great grandmothers 78's. My grandparents purchased me a small desktop hi-fi from Wards (where my grandmother worked), and gave me a present of about 25 country 78's. I was mesmerized. My grandparents owned a Radio/TV/Phonograph dealership and I was always fascinated with grandfather working on turntables, he had hundreds of cartridges, needles, tubes and parts. In fact he also had parts for wind-up phonographs, he told me he repaired those in the 1950s at about a rate of 5 a week.

Fast forward to 1987, that summer my Dad and I went to a antique shop in Valparaiso, IN, and lo and behold I was fascinated with this upright phonograph, my Dad said if you really want it then I will buy it and he did!
The paint covered phonograph had to be stripped, reproducer rebuilt and my grandfather set the governor to slow it down to play a record at 78. The machine was a Magnola Talking Machine from Chicago. Then I needed records and we would find many of them in the late 80s and 90s (batwings, orthophonics etc.) for peanuts... One lady said $ 10.00 and you can have em all, must have been 200 records). The fun was going through them during the winter and seeing which ones are in the stack.

In 1993, I purchased my first cylinder machine (Columbia Q) and three wax cylinders Anona, The Kings Business and Minerva...all Edison wax cylinders...and the rest is history.

[welshfield]

I started in high school. We had a band that played Dixieland (technically we called it Traditional Jazz) and copied arrangements from old 78s we picked up at the Salvation Army and elsewhere, playing them on (then) modern turntables with the flip-over cartridge and three speeds. I also went to yard sales where occassionally the old lady selling the stuff would say, "Don't you want the record player too, sonny?" This continued all throughout college and afterwards. I bought some wonderful open-horn machines for little money. Cylinders, too, although the jazz available on them was quite limited. Prices were great back then, two machines were even "free," or typically $15, $45, with the maximum I ever spent being $65 for a Victor V and the same price for a Victor III !!! Some inside horn machines as well, including a console Sonora for $15 at the downtown Salvation Army store. Ah the good old days.

Many of the machines had problems, and it wasn't until the 1980s that I discovered people who were selling replacement governor and main springs and gasket materials, etc. Then I got very active with collecting. Joined the Michigan Antique Phono Society, even drove the 100 + miles to a few of their shows. I managed to buy a huge collection of very early operatic red seals at auction along with a Pooley cabinet, and with the help of a fellow record collector gained great appreciation for this genre.

All was well. That is, until about 20 years ago when I got screwed on two occasions by two prominent dealers/collectors in the hobby and then just quit. The machines still were shown throughout the house but played rarely if at all. I turned my attention to antique cars (1920s Dodge Brothers) until this winter. Lacking heat in my garages to work on old cars and being too reluctant to go out and endure working on cars at below-freezing temperatures (life is just too short for that) I took another look at all the phonographs, dusted them off, and here I am again. This time I'll be more careful about whom I deal with. My problem now is with the prices. The $15 days seem to be long gone. I recently bought a Victor I for $461, and the little machine seems quite incongruous next to my $65 Victor V.

[NEFaurora]

My story is an easy one... Cable Television.


Growing up on Long Island, New York, not far from New York City.. I had seen a few old Victrolas in person growing up in the early 1970's that were in various houses I had visited and museums in the area.. but I was always fascinated by the cylinder phonographs, particularly Edison...but I really had no "in depth" knowledge of them.

One day while kicking back on the couch in 2010 not doing much at the time, I clicked the TV remote to onto one of the first episodes of Pawn Stars, - where a guy had been owed some money by another guy in Kentucky, and he took an Edison Phonograph as part of the payment. He then brought the Edison Phonograph which was a "Suitcase Home" model circa 1898 and a box of cylinders and a few horns to the Pawn Star guys and they made a deal for the whole sha-bang for only $400.00 - Boy did that guy get ripped! - Well to make a long story short... I jumped on the web that very same night and started studying Edison Phonographs after that and started going to Phonograph shows and Antique shops and the web for phonographs and parts.. After the purchase of my first Edison Home, I was "hooked". I now have 11 machines..already.. and it's only 3 years later...so I guess that I am averaging around 4 machines per year. Not bad! I already have around 400 mint cylinders.. The collection has taken on a life of its own, and keeps growing! I can now identify and know most of the history of just about every Edison model, and have recently started looking at other makers now.

Tony K.
Melbourne, FL

[sosumi]

Back around 1983, my sister gave me an empty VV-XI "Radio" Cabinet that she planned to make into a wine cabinet. I became immediately infatuated with the Victrola logo and decided to find the original components. There was a Wind Up Phonograph Store in suburban Chicago and asked him to find the correct parts.

He did, and I probably way overpaid for them, but at the time it was worth every penny. Was able to get a dozen albums of old Victor Records at a local used record shop and the enjoyment began. I have since accumulated another VV-XI, several tabletop Victrolas, an Edison Gem with a Polyphone attachment (which I traded for a Victor V), an Edison Home and a Victor III. Due to downsizing, only have the Victor V and Edison Home.

Before and After pics of my original VV-XI are pictured.