Turning to the experts.

[Diesel73]

Hello everyone,

I just inherited a Cecilian phonograph and have no idea what to do with it. after looking through a lot of forums, y’all seem to be the most knowledgeable. I’ve read the links that have been posted about them, and was hoping to get some assistance on whether this is something I should treasure or sell. Let me know what y’all think.

[fran604g]

It looks to me as in very nice condition. How it sounds should let you know whether you like it, however as it's a family heirloom apparently, that should determine whether it's a treasure.

Just my $0.02 mind you.

Best,
Fran

[OrthoFan]

I agree that your Cecilian phonograph seems to be in very good, original condition. Cecilian phonographs were sold in the US exclusively by Montgomery Ward, and the one you have looks to be from the late teens or early 1920s.

I did some online searching, but haven't found your exact model, yet. I did find a Cecilian phonograph owner's manual posted on the Internet Archive, which I downloaded and saved as a PDF file --

Cecilian phonograph manual.pdf

(1007.19 KiB) Downloaded 75 times

It's a generic type owner's manual, but should answer some questions you might have concerning how it works.

As to what to do with it, if you have no interest in it, I'd suggest, first of all, to check with any of your family members to see if anyone might want to give it a good home--as long as no one wants to turn it into a bar or blanket chest.

OrhoFan

[VanEpsFan1914]

Well, not all collectors would pay megabucks for a Cecelian phonograph, but they're really neat machines & worth preserving & collecting. One in such a nice, ornate cabinet, with its original grill cloth over the horn, is a really neat find for the discriminating collector.

When the Victor Victrola came off patent in (I think) 1912, there were countless imitators of the design--big handsome cabinet with horn concealed inside, regular 78rpm records, nice lid. A winning design? They thought so back then, too.

Cecelian was a brand from Montgomery Wards & Co., later known for rebadging radios and selling them as Airlines. They were a big catalog store, rivalling Sears and Roebuck--basically like eBay and Amazon were Wards and Sears. Not everyone took as good of care of these machines as your family did. Kudos to y'all for that!

Your machine is in awesome shape. Most phonographs found these days aren't that nice-looking and must be restored to look & work good.

You could sell it. If there's a collector nearby with space in his house, he (or she--a lot of classy dames collect record players as well!) would probably check it out. But here's what I'd do, honestly...

I'd keep it. I would restore the reproducer, or pickup head (we'll walk you through it or if it's too daunting a task, someone will probably help. I'd fix it for free if you want.) Then I'd service the windup motor--like cars, they run better on good oil.

Then, considering there is probably a great record collection untouched since Back in The Day sitting right there in the cabinet (that Grey Gull record alone is a nice rare-ish label) I'd stock up on steel single-use needles and play it whenever I got a chance. It's perfectly usable if these little things are done, and they transform the sound from "pleasantly nostalgic in mild doses" to "let's hear that great old phonograph again--you have such a neat collection!"

Having a phono like this is a real statement piece to your family's great taste and your ability to fix anything. Also, vintage music is amazing--there are records for everybody's taste. Even if your jam is of a more modern cast, a lot of modern music is influenced by the old-time recordings. For example, Bob Dylan was influenced by 1930s blues.

Reliable? Are they? Of course they are. I was listening to an old Victor machine today, the kind with the big black iron horn on the back, usually only found in museums and old movies. The record was Paderewski playing his own Minuet in G, from far back in the 1910s--and both phonograph and record worked flawlessly over 110 years later. They are like old pocket watches--built to pass down from generation to generation

And you already have the space for it, which is nice. Lots of collectors are out of room!

Keep 'em spinning,
Charles F.

[Django]

If you have the space and like it, you should probably keep and treasure it. If you don’t care for it, I’m sure that someone else would treasure it. They are a bit of a time machine in that you can feel, hear and play 1920, or whatever year you choose. The experience is from the time of the machine and record. There are very few things that have that ability. They are not for everyone, but you have to give it a chance if you want to know if it is for you. The short answer is that only you can say if you should treasure it or not.

[78recordpicker]

That is a lovely machine in very nice shape, love the woodwork. Cant add much other than if the reproducer is serviced and the motor cleaned up, it probably would sound great!
If you want to, post a couple of pics of the records under it

[78recordpicker]

one other quick note - the Bing Crosby 78 Christmas set is iconic, if it were in really nice shape it could sell for 40- 50 plus on ebay during the holiday season

[Diesel73]

Thank you all for the info, I knew I came to the right place. The records have been untouched for years. Here is a closer shot of them. I have a whole bunch of antique family heirlooms. I do have the space to keep it, I’m just sure someone else would appreciate it more than I do. Thoughts to ponder.

I did go through the manual and did a little reading and it does play nice, it has an interesting sound and am sure this piece needs to be fixed, otherwise it played great. I have new needles still wrapped in paper.

[VanEpsFan1914]

You might have an "interesting" sound, but I'm sure you can get it to work even better. Your needle is only good for playing one side of a record--then change it. Those gaskets are about 70 years past their prime, too. You might want to get some tubing from eBay and a bit of beeswax and rebuild it--we'll walk you through it. That can take the sound from OK to amazing.

Your "Cecelian" phonograph is named after St. Cecelia, young lady of the 2nd or 3rd centuries who is titled as patroness of the art of music, by the way. There is no reasonable doubt as to her historical existence, though the Acta of her martyrdom seems mainly a pious sort of fiction. Her fame lives on nowadays in many, many references in poetry, classical music, and even a beautiful but rather gory Baroque sculpture by Stefano Maderno, showing her shortly after the executioner missed three times and decided to call it a day. (Her body was found in a near-perfect state of preservation in the 1500s and Maderno descended into the Catacombs to get the reference for his sculptures. Weird but interesting.)

Disgusting end to her career aside, the name of Cecelia was a sort of synonym in the early 20th century for all things artistic and musical and pure--and phonograph advertising with this in it was inevitable, for no ad agency could go without making phonograph buyers feel themselves as superior and artistic, and any phonograph that had a "pure" tone (free of record scratch and metallic noises) was considered a good one.

So there's a little ancient history, imaginative hagiography, lazy hatchet work, and dead Roman girl, combined with a little 1920s advertising hot air to explain what makes a Cecelian a Cecelian.

Weird but cool. All phonographs have something odd about them--for example, there are a bunch of theories on how the Victrola got its name.

[drh]

Welcome to the forum, and congratulations on starting out with a really interesting phonograph!

Worth noting: some of the records in the cabinet are 33.3 RPM LPs (what people persist these days in calling "vinyls"). Do not attempt to play one of those on this machine unless you want to shred them.

It's a beautiful machine; that cabinet is far more elaborate than most. Unfortunately, it probably isn't worth a lot of $$$, as it's considered an "off brand" and so not of interest to the vast majority of collectors who concentrate on the big names, primarily Columbia, Victor, Edison. Considering that yours is probably a perfectly solid performer in an unusually elaborate case, that isn't fair, but there it is. I mention this because it might well be an important factor in that "sell vs. sentiment" calculus. Personally, if something like that came down to me through my family, you couldn't pry it from my fingers with a crowbar. But then, I'm a phonograph enthusiast.

If you keep it, you may want to consider restoring the finish. All that dull, alligatored look is the result of decades of furniture polish, cigarette smoke, cooking fumes, heating oil fumes, and what have you being deposited on a surface that once looked like the inside of the lid, and the original, attractive finish still lurks underneath. There are ways to bring back that original luster, or a good bit of it, without removing the original finish; if you decide you want to try, you'll find ample advice here on the forums.