Vitanola Portable

[tcmeeno]

I picked this up in a junk store near Medicine Hat Alberta.
Tonight I looked for something on the internet on a Vitanola portable and found very little. This is supposed to have the tone arm suspended in the middle of the lid and some how amplify the music!! I have not hooked it up as I don't want to bend the holding clip. It came with an Apollo reproducer which is probably wrong although it kind of fits.
Does anybody know something about these?? I would guess an original reproducer would be hard to find! It cranks up and runs fine.
Terry

[gramophoneshane]

What you have is actually a rebadged Apollophone portable.
Apollophone had close ties with the Paillard company in Switzerland, so your machine should have a Paillard motor, and would have been ordered from Paillard by the Vitanola company. The soundbox would be original to the machine, and the "Vitanola" brake would have been added at the Paillard factory so it could be sold as a Vitanola machine in USA.
The picture below shows the Apollophone version of your portable, and also shows another slightly earlier machine which has the Apollophone decals on the sound reflector.
These two machines apparently date from 1920 and 1922.

[JohnM]

Interesting . . . American cabinet model Vitanolas are generic junk-o-phones. I wonder if it is the same company/brand?