The Last Known Edison Amberola VI (D 6)?

[FellowCollector]

According to Frow and Sefl's book, after the December 1914 fire there were only seven complete Amberola VI's left. These were presumably model C-VI's. The remaining stock of 204 empty Amberola VI cabinets were fitted with Amberola 50 works and offered for sale at $50 to end the Amberola VI model.

Mine is serial #98 but I've never seen any other surviving Amberola model "D VI" or "D 6" (as my ID plate indicates).

For what it's worth regarding the Amberola V, after the December 1914 fire there were 859 finished empty cabinets remaining and these had Amberola 75 works installed and were offered for sale at a reduced price.

It's interesting to surmise that the Edison Company likely anticipated a greater sales volume of the Amberola V versus the Amberola VI since there were more than 4 times (!!) the remaining stock of empty cabinets for the Amberola V at the time of the December 1914 fire.

Doug

[Valecnik]

That sure is an unusual machine. I do have some questions about it. The mechanism and Diamond C reproducer are from an Amberola 50 that came out in early 1915. Were these late Amberola D VI a transitional machine until the more familiar Amberola 50 came out? I wonder if Edison used the old style cabinets with the news mechanisms. Do any of the Edison experts know?
Harvey Kravitz

Well, the Amberola B-V (apparently only 859 were produced) had a mechanism from a 75: presumably the D-VI used a 50 works. The purpose of these models was most likely to move old cabinet stock as the new models were being introduced.

Bill

These were all old style V & VI cabinets with the new 50, 75 works. The works in the 50 and 75 is the same.