See you at the Antique Phonograph Show tomorrow!

[marcapra]

Hope to see all of you that can make this west coast show that is our California answer to Union. I will have a table and hope to be selling. To quote from the APS website:

The Antique Phonograph Society Annual Banquet, Show & Sale will be held August 13-14, 2016 at the UFCW Union Hall, 8530 Stanton Ave, Buena Park, California. As always, expect dealers from all over North America to be offering a wide variety of items from the commonplace to the fabulously rare. Whether it be old recordings, phonographs, music boxes, or other antique mechanical music, the APS Annual Show & Sale is an excellent venue!.

Feel free to post some pics of the show here!

Marc Capralis

[EdiBrunsVic]

It would have been nice to attend, but it was too far to travel. Hopefully there will be some photos posted.

[Markola]

We will be there - looking forward to it!

Mark

[gemering]

Please post some photos for those of us who live on the right coast.
Hope it's a great show for all who attend.

Gene

[Markola]

Went to the APS show in Buena Park today (was my first APS show). I’d say it was moderately well attended, but definitely not “packed”. However, today (Sunday) was the ‘general admission day’ ($5 entry), as opposed to Saturday, which was the ‘Early-Bird day’ ($40 entry), so there may have been more & better machines yesterday which were snapped up by the time I got there.

There were LOTS of records (78’s & cylinders) available. I bought a couple dozen nice, clean 78’s (mostly 20’s & 30’s jazz/big-band/blues) at $2 or $3 each. (And found some good stuff in the 3-for-a-dollar bins also…score!) Some of the cylinders were high ($8 for ‘ordinary’ recordings in so-so condition) but I found a guy selling really minty 2 min. Gold Moulded cyls (really clean, in proper boxes w/lids) for $5 ea., and I bought a few.

Didn’t see many of the really rare/exotic/interesting machines that apparently populate the larger shows back east (just judging from photos I’ve seen here) but saw several nice, clean machines at decent prices. (Ex: a really immaculate VV-XI in oak for $400 was typical.) Also saw lots of the ‘miniature’ (7” turntable) disc machines. (Okay, there was a really awesome Swiss music box from circa 1880 that I loved, but it was $3500 and I don’t know enough about them or the market for them. Also saw a beautiful Zenith radio for $400, but again, I’m too ignorant to make an informed purchase…)

However, a personal bonus for me was a number of wood-horn Victors with high prices ($4K - $5K+) which made my wife really happy about my latest Vic w/spear-point restoration…ha!

I found (and bought) was I was looking for – a mechanically sound VV-VI (rebuilt reproducer, re-packed springs, etc.) with a pretty worn-out finish, for $285. I thought that was a little high (I’ve seen similar on Craigslist for $200) but the couple that were selling it (from Golden State Phonographs) were really nice/friendly/informative, so I paid their asking price w/o dickering. I’ve recently restored one of these (for my brother) and this one is for my college-age son, who’s taken an interest in them and really wants one of the lidless tabletop machines.

All in all I had a great day at the show, and I’ll definitely go back next year (it’s about 6 hours round trip for me, so that’s a solid recommendation…haha).

Cheers!
Mark

[phonolady]

Mark,
Thanks for the pictures from Sun. This does look a little sparse in attendance.

Does anyone have pictures from Sat. they can post and or a report from Sat.

Thanks,

David & Lerria

[Jerry B.]

I thought this years APS show & sale was one of the best ever. I sold a bunch of cylinders (around 120 @ $5 each) and machines including a Suitcase Home, Home D, Edison Standard A, and VV-IV. I always judge a sale by how busy I am during the day. On Saturday I was busy from the moment I dropped the door to the trailer until we loaded Mike Sorter's Amberola 1-A after the banquet. Sunday was no different. We were busy until late in the day. Jerry Blais

[marcapra]

I agree with Jerry! That photo is a bit deceptive. It must have been taken late Sunday. I sold every phonograph I brought on the first day! I should have rented a U-haul trailer and brought more phonos. I picked up my Edison C-2 from Jerry on Sat and am now having a blast playing records on it, both DDs and needle-cut records. I bought it months ago from radio phonograph expert Chuck Azzalina from NY. He didn't want to ship it, but he agreed to bring it to the Stanton auction in MI. Uncle Vanya agreed to hold it for me until June, and bring it to Union, where he passed it over to Jerry. The show was much more crowded on Sunday, but I did more sales on Sat. That's when the serious buyers show up! We also had a great dinner of prime rib and chocolate mousse, and a big silent auction. There was a great Dixieland jazz band concert by the California Feetwarmers after our meal, complete with jazz dancing and waltzes! I even won the raffle prize of some Feetwarmers cds and a vinyl record! A great meet to be sure!

[phonolady]

Sold every machine you brought---WOW! That is a great report and sounds like lots of fun at the show.

What machines did you sell?



Also, Jerry, glad you had a great show and thanks for picking up our cabinet.

All the best,

David & Lerria

[Markola]

Glad you guys had great shows - sounds like you moved a bunch of machines, esp. on Saturday. I think the lesson here for me is to show up on the first day...ha! (BTW, all those pics were taken mid-morning on Sunday, between 10:00 and 11:00.) The Saturday evening banquet and after-dinner music show sounds really good, too - I'll have to look into that next year.

And as an update, my son is really stoked about his "new" VV-VI. He's moving out-of-state at the end of the month, so he and I have a couple of weeks to get it ship-shape. (The cabinet's in pieces on my workbench now.) Should be a fun father-son project. (And the encouraging thing is, he's a very modern, digital-age, media-savvy young guy - just graduated from Cal Poly, SLO, with a degree in business/marketing - and yet he's recently become fascinated with antique phonographs. He and I are both musicians, which probably helps, but it makes me happy when someone younger than me gets interested in these amazing machines.)

Cheers,
Mark