Unusual Wooden Horn - and Gramophone

[Steve]

Who buys Crapophones? Seriously speaking now.

BTW, I still think that tone-arm and bracket are Lindstrom parts and not repro as Chunny says. At the very least they are modelled on the original parts.

[snallast]

I think you Carlos put your finger on an interesting subject - possibly the near future will be fabricating better and better falsifications (and also reading this forum), as long as it´s worth their while. For 1800 - 2000 euros you only need 5 machines to harvest 10000 euros which is money anywhere.

Interpol said publicly a couple of years ago that 50% of all valuable antiques and art sold today are falsifications. That is a staggering amount!
I know the dog model was replicated in the 1970-ies, but I don´t know how well or for which purposes. And maybe it was an honest replicating, like the tinfoil machines.

The knowledge on this forum will become more and more valuable that´s for sure! Another thought is: maybe we should start documenting the provenance of individual machines starting today to help keep things as honest as possible?
Hakan

[CarlosV]

I know the dog model was replicated in the 1970-ies, but I don´t know how well or for which purposes. And maybe it was an honest replicating, like the tinfoil machines.

Hakan, I have seen excellent replicas of the dog model in Europe, indistinguishable from legitimate machines down to use of old wood to make the cabinet and addition of patina to horn and metal parts and newly-made reproducers that also looked old. In one case the seller showed me the machine, identifying it as a reproduction and indicating that only its serial number would give it away (he said that all such new machines had the same serial number). As to tin foil, I have seen great reproductions properly identified as such, including a plaque on its base with the manufacturer's name. But having seen the high quality of manufacture of such reproductions, buying an authentic one always carries a significant risk.

Provenance would be great, but is it realistic? only a small fraction of machines carry any documentation that would link them to their origins, and in most cases even what we call rare machines were manufactured and sold at least by the hundreds or thousands of units. That, allied to the lack of documentation from most manufacturers, would render the provenance work quite frustrating, I'm afraid. Even what I would consider as well-documented manufacturers, like Victor, HMV or Columbia, have significant gaps, especially when we look for information of machines from these companies outside the US and UK, where information is almost non-existent. Japanese Victor, Spanish, Indian and German Gramophone Co, Chinese Columbia all come to mind.

The one deterrent to widespread forgery in our hobby is only its small number of adepts and its relatively low value. The number of collectors worldwide and the market price of the most valuable machines does not justify the investment in sophisticated falsifications.

[Steve]

The one deterrent to widespread forgery in our hobby is only its small number of adepts and its relatively low value. The number of collectors worldwide and the market price of the most valuable machines does not justify the investment in sophisticated falsifications.

I agree with everything you've said, Carlos, but on the other hand it does beg the question of who the Crapophones / Frankenphones are aimed at? I have seen literally thousands of Crapophones so someone somewhere must be making them for a market, however cheap they might be. The question remains, where is that market and what kind of person is buying the fake gramophones in such high numbers to justify the production scales?

[chunnybh]

Fakes!. I live in Hong Kong and it is flooded with fakes made in China. From baby milk formula to fake eggs. Fake eggs!.
90% of gramophones I see are fake. Whole street full of them. Who buys them, well your average Joe who will go blue in the face when you try and tell him it's a fake. He usually knows it's a fake but does not want me to tell him and his friends that it is. Best leave him in his ignorance, why make him unhappy.
The horns from Peru look good and the newly made Mikiphones (How can they make all those parts) look so real. My only objection is when they sell them as originals. I notice the Mikiphones originally were being sold as reproductions but now there are so many about being sold as originals, I would not dare buy one.

[CarlosV]

90% of gramophones I see are fake. Whole street full of them. .

The concern, Chunny, is not the majority of fakes in the market that a collector like you can identify a mile away, but the one that is indistinguishable from the real one. Take as example the Peru horn that I bought - it is so well made, down to the metallic ring and the decals, that it can only be distinguished from my vintage horn because it looks new (and it is not cracked), the manufacturer does not add any fake patina to the varnishing. It could not be distinguishable from a very well preserved vintage edison horn just from visual inspection, it probably would take analysis of materials used in the varnishing, which would be more expensive than the price of the horn anyway. So today we have a legitimate manufacturer making a high quality reproduction - and selling it as a reproduction, but who prevents anyone in the future to resell the same reproduction as the original genuine article? and worst of all, how the buyer can distinguish it in the future, after all in 10 years the horn that looks brand new today will have accumulated its own signs of aging. I believe this is what happened to the reproduction dog model, it was made in the 70s or 80s by a well-intended manufacturer that sold it as a reproduction, but now the market has been inflated with such machines been sold as legitimate originals.

[Steve]

When did India start reproducing Mikiphones? And WHY??!!!!

Aren't there enough Mikiphones in existence anyway? I have a complete Mikiphone with needle tin, separate instruction booklet, original blue padded cardboard box, leather carrying case etc. The gramophone is in near mint condition apart from the loss of part of the original paper "felt" on the turntable. What bothers me slightly is that in the future someone might think my machine is an Indian repro as it's so complete and in this condition. Someone has just bought an original instruction booklet for £60-70 off eBay. How difficult would it be to reprint these on cheap paper stock and then to age them if they can successfully reproduce the machine?!

[snallast]

In the artworld this topic was looked at a lot recently (and from a lot of points of view) - there have been several exhibitions on this theme - original and copy - and if inddistinguishable (is that a word?) by sight, taste, sound etc. then what is the difference?? There have been exhibits of originals side by side with copies - even buildings where it is simply not possible to see any difference.

It´s a conceptual question then? What difference does it make? Is it some kind of fetishism? I´m not sure myself - but I AM sure of one thing - I don´t want the copy! It makes me feel cheated, there is a cheating intention that comes with the object posing as something which it is not - I don´t like to be fooled. Maybe that´s it?

[chunnybh]

Fakes are just part of the antique trade. Fortunately with gramophones, on personal inspection, it's pretty obvious when it's a fake. Good reproductions are a rare thing, anyone making high quality reproductions has my backing. I'd like it if they marked them as reproductions but in reality does it matter when and who made the part as long as it is as good as the original. In some cases reproduction parts are better than the original.

[Marco Gilardetti]

Has anyone noted that the speed regulator arrow and bezel are from a Decca "trench" portable?

I don't know if it's even a frankenphone. A crap-o sure it ain't. Perhaps it's a home-made "gramophone of the gramophones" with a mix & match of original parts, as Mr. Winsleydale on this board is planning to do.

The wooden horn, however, looks superb and I would also pay big bucks for it alone.

I agree with everything you've said, Carlos, but on the other hand it does beg the question of who the Crapophones / Frankenphones are aimed at? I have seen literally thousands of Crapophones so someone somewhere must be making them for a market, however cheap they might be. The question remains, where is that market and what kind of person is buying the fake gramophones in such high numbers to justify the production scales?

Well, the answer is easy, Steve. I personally know at least a half dozen persons that bought a crap-o to display in their living room. When I first detect a crap-o in someone's house I always do my best to completely ignore it and I pray the Lord and all Saints that may nobody else jump on the subject, revealing that I'm some kind of expert on the matter or a sort of collector. But in most cases (actually I think all cases) I've found out that the owners already knew that their crap-o-s were "fantasy machines"; most of them said they were sold to them as such; they liked it nonetheless and think that the fact that they could actually play a record was amusing.

Crap-o-s have been consistently aired on italian TV serials. Since 2000 onward there has been basically no TV show set in the belle époque or even the '30s where one or two crap-o-s were not displayed.

As odd as it may sounds, I also know some tobacconists - those with an "extended" shop that also sells pipes, playing cards, dices and other gadgets - that have for sale in their shrinee some reproductions of cylinder phonographs, with imitation decal and all. I think (but I'm not sure) that these don't really play any cylinder, but are inteded as plain ornaments.

The last crap-o that crossed my road was this July, in a record shop (I mean a 45s and 33 RPMs shop). Believe it or not after only few hours of display in the shrine a passer-by offered 150 € for it. As the seller is a very serious and honest man and was himself suspicious of the gramophone, he asked me an opinion about it and - possibly - to teach him how to tell a crap-o from a McCoy. It was the super-standard-crap-o by the way, the one with the hexagon base. I could list to him no less than 20 blatant counterfeit details, but could go ahead for another half hour with lesser details upon request. Nonetheless, the day after the crap-o was sold as an "imitation" and proudly displayed in someone's living room.

So: yes, there obviously is a florid market for crap-o-s.