Were there Victor machine sales after the RCA merger?

[52089]

I've been having a (semi-)friendly email discussion with a Craigslist seller who has what appears to be a common XI with what he claims is a 1932 RCA Victor sticker on the back. I have not seen a photo of the sticker, but it's clearly not original to the period of manufacture. I assume it was on a later machine and attached to the XI for some unknown reason.

My understanding was that Victor cleared out their pre-Orthophonic stock as much as possible prior to the launch of the Orthophonics. Would there have been any reason that RCA Victor would have still had something like an XI in stock as late as 1932?

[phonogfp]

Makes no sense to me. The weak link in this equation is probably the Craigslist seller. If it has a dog on it, it's "RCA." If it says Victor on it, it's "RCA."

Or, there may be a dealer's sticker on the back dating from a repair done in the 30s, and the dealer's sticker appropriately says "RCA."

Unless the Craigslist seller has some background in antique phonographs, I'm betting he/she is not properly interpreting the sticker.

George P.

[52089]

Makes no sense to me either, George, but I thought I'd ask in case there was some possibility I was not aware of. I do like the idea of a dealer sticker.

The seller in question is asking an absurd amount for the machine. I tried to offer some friendly advice as a disinterested party and got a response that I clearly had no idea what I was talking about. And yes, he pointed out the "RCA dog" on the lid.

[marcapra]

It could have the 1932 RCA sticker because of a dealer's shop repair of the Victrola XI, or it could have been a used model that someone had traded in to the dealer, then resold. I once owned a 1923 Victrola model 405 console that came with a receipt dated 1928. The original list price was $250. It was sold by the dealer as a second hand phonograph and the buyer had paid it off in monthly installments of $8, which were stamped off on the receipt with the dealer's initials. I think the total cost of it was about $80. That gives you a good idea of what a used, five years old, pre-Orthophonic Victrola would be worth in 1928 from a dealer.

[FloridaClay]

Unless he gets someone who has no idea what a VV-XI really is, I expect that seller will have it in stock for a very, very long time.

It would be pretty easy to see about when it was made from the serial number and The Victor Data Book.

Clay

[OrthoSean]

For what it's worth - in 1933, Albany, NY's largest Victor dealer went bankrupt. Notice in this ad for the bankruptcy auction, they are selling "Victrolas", obviously these could have been leftover orthophonics, but they also could have been earlier machines either leftover from earlier days or machines taken on trade.

Sean

[Silvertone]

For a few years after the merger there was a separation of the "the Victor Division" from RCA, and some instruments were marketed as Victors, while RCA offered similar models under its name. I suppose this was done because it took a little while to fully merge the distribution system and dealers. Of course the manufacture of Victrola XIs ended many years earlier, although a new Victrola XI could have survived until 1932 (I have a Victrola that was bought new from a former dealer's going-out-of-busines sale in 1970). None of this changes the fact that this Craigslist seller is clueless, however.

[EarlH]

I had a guy in central Iowa call me to come look at two Victrolas he had in packing crates yet. They were both XVI's and were new in the packing crate yet. He was a barbed wire collector and I thought he wanted me to make an offer on them. He had one of the crates open on the top and you could see down in there that they were all wrapped in paper and twine, et. all holding the paper and everything down. Some of the packing was out of that crate so I could see they were later XVI's with the plain legs, but they were old enough to have Roman numerals on the side of the packing crate. He thought they were worth thousands and he definitely had at least ten-thousand examples of barbed wire in that room down in his basement. It must have been about 1990 because a couple of years later we had that huge flood go through the state. I had called him a few times about selling them and he wouldn't of course. After the flood he offered to give them to me, but I didn't even go clear down there to look. I pretty much hung up on him. So, there was inventory around into the thirties like that of course, but it wouldn't have been worth much. Oh, he did tell me the barbed wire collection was fine. HA!

[Henry]

Too bad about the flood ruining those NOS machines.

One collecting urge I don't/can't relate to is barbed wire! Ah, well, to each his own. Thank goodness I only have books, scores, records, model trains.