Original Grille Cloth Colors

[3victrolas]

Grille Cloth from my Edison C-200 in mahogany The picture doesn't show it very well, but the cloth is a faded golden green.




Grille cloth from my mahogany Consolette that I sold

[Valecnik]

The W250 is in my Hometown. If I had room for it I would try to buy it. A friend of mine an antique dealer bought it at an auction a couple of weeks ago for the amazing price of $35.00 with a dolphin key which he sold in another ebay auction. The phonograph is in outstanding original condition.

Larry

Larry, Hopefully you or someone locally will pick this up. It is in really good condition and I think the W250 is a very desireable machine. I've got one in similarly good condition or I might be seriously thinking about it.

The one flaw I notice about this one is that the reproducer must have come from later. The gun metal finish on it is close but not quite right. Also the reproducer appears not to be wired for the Duncan stop as the original would have been. With a little luck you could find an earlier correct reproducer and then you'd really have something.

[phonophan79]

Here is the special "Christmas edition" grill cloth for an Edison tabletop.

[bbphonoguy]

I know we're all familiar with the grille cloth for the Victor Credenza so I won't post photos (don't have a digital camera, so I couldn't do it anyway), but I just want to say that my Credenza was a complete wreck when I bought it. It was missing the feet, the doors had literally peeled to pieces (all the pieces were there), the cabinet looked as if it had been standing in a couple inches of water, veneer was peeling like crazy, and there were actually grubs living in the bottom molding. In spite of that, the original grille cloth was clean and intact! Go figure.

[Nat]

My Credenza is in pretty good shape: I've used a mild cleaner to scrub the case clean, then polished it with beeswax, leaving a few scrapes and scratches "rounded off" but present. The grille cloth is a bit grungy - but I'm inclined to leave it looking(respectfully) used, rather than put a new cloth in that will look glaringly new.

All of my machines I've restored to a stage where they can be "un-restored" if someone later wants to, or can do better than I have done. The scars of age can be worn with pride, if they're not affecting the use of the machine. How far do we go toward restoration? I'm inclined to try to clean the grill cloth, but leave it in situ.

Any thoughts?

Nat

[Brad]

I try and do nothing more than just clean the machine and maybe hide scratches and paint spatters. I like to see some age and patina in my machines. The only time I will attack a machine is if the finish is so far go it is not presentable in it's current condition.

I also believe that there is a larger market for machines "in the wild" than for ones that have been tamed.

[bbphonoguy]

I'm all in favor of keeping machines as original as possible, but (if you read my previous post) my Credenza had no place to go but up. It truly was one step above landfill material. Now it looks gorgeous, if I do say so myself.

[estott]

Original grille cloth from my Cheney