The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Fellow Forum Members-

Here is an interesting upright that appears to be made of rosewood. It has a Victor motor, turntable, tone arm, and reproducer. And...it has highly carved Chinese Dragons carved on the front and side panels. It also has a highly carved grill. As attested by the photos, the cabinet is amazing and beautiful.

Unfortunately, there are no maker marks or brand name on the cabinet.

Has anyone seen an upright example like this one? It surely is professionally done and not home made. But I have no information on it's origins.

-Mark

PS...Don't know why the photos upload sideways...but if you double click them, they load correctly.

Very impressive, but if the picture colours are accurate the wood looks more like Teak than Rosewood.

The motor board looks like Mahogany, which suggests that it came from an existing machine and was later fitted into this cabinet.

Exquisite wood carving. I hope you find more information on the cabinet maker.

I suspect it was done by Chinese carvers, possibly in China. Someone may have taken a Victrola with them and returned with This. It also might have been done by a shop in a city with a large Chinese population, like NYC or San Francisco. I'm surprised that there is no polychrome decoration.

Very interesting.

I noticed that the tone-arm bracket, and motor all sit to right-of-center of the cabinet as we face the machine, even with respect to the motor board itself.


I guess the creators were limited by the length of Victor's winding-key ?



Do you have a front view with the lid closed ?

Yes...here's a front view with the lid closed. Note how tall the cabinet is! That's a Victor XVI next to it.

-Mark

Obviously, this is not a cabinet made by a phonograph company, but a custom job, or an existing cabinet had a Victrola put in it.