The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Here in Spain I've seen mostly crapophones/frankenphones, or heavily restored machines (oh, God! and you never know what operations have been done on these poor machines)... but never an original... Although lately, before the pandemic, many French machines started to appear in the flea market. I've spotted some original French Pathé external horn gramophones, but never an HMV. I suspect gypsies and other merchants in antiques have discovered the cheap South France gold mine, and they have started to exploit it, attending those fairs and bringing hear the goods, as they are selling cheap stuff, original, and all French! Even mountains of old books with rich bindings and covers, all written in French. Our popular flea market is flooded with French stuff! I suppose the Spanish sources for antique machines are scarce and have been exploited too much in the XX century, so nothing is left. I can see many records, but rarely valuable machines. And prices for horn machines used to be in the €1000-1500 range... that is, for those machines of unknown origins and story. I've quitted visiting antique stores some years ago, for they are also pretty expensive. I'm trying to reduce my collection, and maybe I'd go for a trade: give away several of my tabletops and portables for a single, good, external horn machine. I don't go for cylinder machines, as those are much more complex than the disc gramophones, and I love machines that work at its best... although their appearance is not pristine, but aged, cared for, and ORIGINAL.

I bought my first external horn machine at a local antiques fair 20 years ago. It bears no maker's name, but the tonearm has a faint impression of the Beka flamingo trade mark.

I probably paid too much for it, but it has been an investment in pleasure and is my favourite machine for the occasional presentations which I give to local groups, as it conforms to most non-collectors ideas of what a gramophone should look like.

The value of such machines has fallen, due in part to the proliferation of Crapophones which can be bought cheaply by those who just want a decorator's piece. This does not bother me, as the next generation has already promised to keep it in the family.

Some years later I was bitten by the EMG/Expert bug, but that is another story.

I have been collecting "on and off" since the late 1990s. I rarely see them for sale.... When I do, they are drastically overpriced at flea markets and antique malls. Out of the 4 or 5 I remember stumbling upon, I bought 2 of them - just because you never see them - at least in the region I am in....

I passed up a Busy Bee Front Machine in the northern Virginia area a few years back in the $250 range. That is last one I happened to come across by accident on my quest for off brands....

Of course, it did not have the original reproducer, though. Why would it?

...and meanwhile, here I sit in the USA, wishing for a good Pathé open horn machine with a stout motor to play the 14" discs, and they never turn up here--at least, I've never seen one. Not even at the two or three shows I've attended along the line. In this country, Pathé machines all seem to be basically the same modest "half cabinet" upright, like the No. 100 that was my first crank phono (and that still sits behind me in this very room), with the occasional admixture of a paper cone Actuelle upright.

This is my 5th year of collecting machines and I now have 2 external horn disc machines. If you’re looking for a less expensive external horn disc player something like a Standard machine are affordable enough. Not to mention people here are willing to sell you one if you ask!

Sometimes you get lucky. In 2019 I bought a nice untouched original Victor V with a black #24 horn at an estate sale for $1K. I rebuilt the reproducer, oiled the motor and it plays like a champ. I still need to gojo it, though as it's pretty dirty. Sometimes you do get luckey.


Jim

And $1000 is pretty lucky for a Vic V these days. Most I’ve seen are $2500+

$1K is about half of the amount I have seen comparable machines bring at Stanton's in the last three or so years.

Jim

Advice to the original poster. Save your money and go to a show. Buy some books and learn about the machines before you go.

I don't know where you are looking, but most outside horn machines don't show up in antiques malls or flee markets unless a phono dealer has a stall there.

It's always best to examine them in person.

Iñigo, learning about machines is sound advice, but I'm afraid a gramophone show is rarer than an external horn machine. There are few in the US and practically nothing in Europe (Rudeshein shrank to almost nothing, Powick sells only records and old radios, and that's it).