Amberolas

[phonogfp]

George, I am sitting here looking at LFTD and this is a one in a million time I just have to, with some trepidation, disagree.

IN LFTD--in my copy at least--Golden Oak Waxed is slightly lighter than fumed and Golden Oak Polished is a lot lighter than fumed, especially in its many highlights. And that is quite consistent with golden and fumed oak furniture finishes I have seen for decades, with the possible exception where exposed shellac has darkened over a long period of time.

I also have a fumed oak C19 with its original finish and comparing inside the lid to inside the lid (where the finishes have deteriorated the least) it is significantly darker than just about all the golden oak I've seen over the years. The same is true of another fumed C19 I've seen recently.

Clay

No need for trepidation, Clay. Thanks for keeping me honest!

Looking at pages 14-15 of my copy of Look for the Dog (2005 edition), I see what you mean. Your observations are perfectly accurate. However, I noted that those are modern photos taken of the insides of lids, so I wondered if particular pieces of wood, lighting, or camera angle - even if consistent in all those photos (which I'm confident they were), could account for what I'm seeing.

I checked my copy of The Victor Data Book (page 55) showing a full-page photo of an original dealer display: "Samples showing various Finishes, Victrola Cabinets." I was astounded to see that - despite my confident assertion to the contrary - the Fumed Oak sample is significantly darker than the Golden oak sample next to it!

This sort of "blew my mind" (as we used to say in the 70s), because I have personally handled that very same artifact, and my memory of those two samples in particular varied from what stared me in the face. So...I pulled out a copy of Phonographica and looked at a photo of this artifact on page 142. Well, the Fumed Oak is still a bit darker than the Golden Oak, but not nearly so much. I can vouch that that particular image was shot on professional slide film under two 500-watt 3200 degree daylight balanced lamps, so the actual color is probably as close to original as possible. What the heck? How could I have been so wrong???

Then, I remembered the photos I have taken of machines here and in a friend's collection about 20 miles from here. Here's a Golden Oak XVI with original finish inside & outside, taken this morning with flash (front view), and taken a few years ago with those 500-watt lights:

Now here are photos I took about 4 years ago of a friend's Victrola XI in Fumed Oak (the surviving original crate confirms the finish). The first was taken with flash by the same camera I used this morning to shoot the Golden Oak XVI. The lower image was taken without flash, and it is darker:

Fumed Oak1.jpg (100.06 KiB) Viewed 1703 times

Fumed Oak2.jpg (63.68 KiB) Viewed 1703 times

FumedOak4.jpg (114.08 KiB) Viewed 1703 times

Having seen this machine many times, I can assure you that it's a very light finish. If it were a guitar, you'd call it "blonde."

I plead mea culpa for evoking the various finishes shown in The Victor Data Book as evidence supporting my contention that Fumed Oak is lighter than Golden Oak. If anyone were to go by that image (and those in Look for the Dog and the one in Phonographica), they'd think I'm crazy. No contest.

However, are we to discount the evidence of the two surviving Victrolas shown above? To me, such evidence is more compelling. Therefore, rightly or wrongly, my experience leads me to persist in my contention that Fumed Oak is lighter than Golden Oak. At least it can be!

As for the original claim that Edison offered a choice of finishes for the Amberola 30, I will not believe it until enlightened by period documentation to confirm it. Victor offered no such choices on Victrolas selling for less than $100. Victor was known for choices in cabinet finishes, but on the less expensive machines, it was not financially viable. I've offered a quote from Frow in a post earlier this morning to support my belief.

Do Amberola 30s exist in dark and light oak finishes? Absolutely. I never denied that. I've been collecting for 49 years, attended shows all over the country for 35 years, and have visited over 100 collections in the course of taking photos for our books. I've seen a boatload of Amberola 30s, and even owned a few Amberola 30s. But Edison is not documented to have ever offered any choice of finish for the Amberola 30.

That leaves us with wanting an explanation for the variety of finish color and quality we see on surviving Amberola 30s. I've already offered the possibilities that have occurred to me.

Thanks for pointing out the problem with my citing the images in Look for the Dog, Clay! It's sincerely appreciated.

George P.

[fran604g]

I have a Golden Oak Victrola which is significantly darker than the Fumed Oak Victrola shown in the old thread referenced above. I don't agree with the premise that Fumed Oak is darker than Golden Oak. Fumed Oak is very light. If you have a copy of Baumbach's Victor Data Book, you'll find a display of sample finishes which will bear out that assertion.

George P.

George, I am sitting here looking at LFTD and this is a one in a million time I just have to, with some trepidation, disagree.

IN LFTD--in my copy at least--Golden Oak Waxed is slightly lighter than fumed and Golden Oak Polished is a lot lighter than fumed, especially in its many highlights. And that is quite consistent with golden and fumed oak furniture finishes I have seen for decades, with the possible exception where exposed shellac has darkened over a long period of time.

I also have a fumed oak C19 with its original finish and comparing inside the lid to inside the lid (where the finishes have deteriorated the least) it is significantly darker than just about all the golden oak I've seen over the years. The same is true of another fumed C19 I've seen recently.

Clay

I've been involved in the controversy myself in regard to the Edison Chippendale "fumed oak" finish. I've observed and recorded a few C 19s (no C 250s, interestingly) that have an obviously different and darker shade of "finish" than golden oak (and assumedly the "white oak" finish offered in some catalogs by Edison, too).

At this point, I've elected to mostly bow out of the produced "available finishes" topic in my Chippendale article series, simply because there is no definitive information that I have found to put the matter to rest once and for all. My gut tells me many of us have observed the "fumed oak" finish, and that Edison's version may very well be quite different from a competitor's version, and maybe even from model to model sometimes, dependant on the cabinet supplier. Many factors determine the outcome of oak that's been subjected to ammonia fuming -- like the amount of time the wood is left to exposure by the cabinet maker, for instance -- and then there's the topic of a protective finish coating once the wood has completed being "fumed". Hand waxing seems to have been the preferred protective finish with at least one manufacturer, but I don't know if there is any reason shellac couldn't have been used. Shellac certainly would have changed the perceived color and tone of the wood, and God only knows how time, cleaning agents, and "furniture polish" can have altered the original 100+ year old finishes, even in areas that aren't necessarily prone to sun exposure.

The C 19 cabinets that I had previously noted in my data as "fumed oak" were a much darker shade than the Victrola version George mentions previously in his link, but I'm not confident enough with my observations to publicly make claim to the term "fumed oak".

Best,
Fran

Now we're really OT!

P.S.: One more item to illustrate one example of the extreme change that time and the elements can produce to a grille cloth (one can only imagine the same effect on a wood finish). This is the original grille cloth in my B 19 #8923. I flipped it over to display the backside which was largely unchanged dark green, and re-glued it in place to correct the immense change it had undergone.

[martinola]

Another thing comes to mind when discussing wood finishes: The wood itself. While you can color up the top coats of a Mahogany finish to make a consistent color and value, you don't have that to work with in fuming. You have only the wood's inherent color and it's potential for turning a color (in a room of ammonia fumes), the color of the shellac sealer and the wax itself. Wood color can vary quite a bit. So that may account for some of the wide discrepancy in color. That would necessarily have dictated a wider range of results that were acceptable. I'm sure that wood selection for each case would have been hyper critical to get it to match itself.

Martin

[A Ford 1]

Hi All,
Although there is variation in the color of any species of wood from from light to dark in general white oak is a darker wood than red oak red oak can have a slight pinkish coloration as well all darken with age and both take stain.
It should be also noted that at about the time these machines were made the chestnut blight was killing many chestnut trees and they were being harvested. Both chestnut and oak when Quarter sawed shows the same highlighted markings that in some special cases one would call tiger striping. I know that some chestnut was sold as tiger oak in furniture and some color differences may be due to chestnut being substituted for oak.

[fran604g]

One last kick o' the tires for me: A tale of two Chippendales that couldn't be more contrasting. Both are oak, one is certainly "Golden Oak", the other?

Fran

[FloridaClay]

Fran, are these original finishes on both?

Clay

[fran604g]

Fran, are these original finishes on both?

Clay

Yes, Clay.

[FloridaClay]

23481=Golden Oak for sure
The other appears to be fumed.

Clay

[phonogfp]

True to my ornery nature, my take is different.

23481 looks like Fumed Oak to me.

96451 looks like Golden oak to me.

Anyone who uses Golden Oak stain can testify that it's very dark. That's to make the open grain turn dark brown so when it's rubbed off there's a nice contrast between the closed grain (light) and the open grain (dark).

My understanding is that Fumed Oak has very little contrast in that respect.

Thanks for posting those excellent photos, Fran. To the best of my knowledge, Edison only offered two oak finishes for the Chippendales: Golden or Fumed. Looks like you must have one of each.

Here's an old thread where Cody K. showed an excellent demonstration of how fuming times can change the appearance of the finish. No wonder we're confused!

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... 1&start=30

George P.

[fran604g]

That's really interesting George, because your take on the subject would indicate that "fumed oak" would have vastly outsold "golden oak". I've only observed very few (maybe a dozen or so) of the darker finished oak Chippendale cabinets.

Fran