How many portables do you have?

[nostalgia]

Thank you for the advice, Barry, this is vital information Lucklily this is a very well ventilated modern storage locker at the second floor of a new building made for lockers, and the top of the locker is ventilated along with the rest of the roof of the same building that contains hundreds of lockers, but for sure I will keep an eye on them !

[Inigo]

Wow! Those are wonderful collections! Dear colleagues: my first portable was the Diana. It was covered in green rexine. And I got in love with it. I bought it one day at the flea market, somewhat like in 1982 or so... for 3000 Ptas (equivalent to 18€). Then, one 78 costed me 50 Ptas (0.60 €) usually.
In a few days the spring broke at the middle! With no internet, no books, no collector colleagues... I had to take myself to the task! So I heated the broken ends in the kitchen gas fire, made two holes and added a short bolt& nut, and it managed to work this way for some more months. Yet then I had to repeat the operation! Later I managed to get a new spring, years later! Oh, God! How I remember that smell of gramophones and how much I liked it.
One day I decided to revamp it, and bought a nice red rexine and recovered it, fairly well! Now I represent having done that. I'm planning to revert it to is original aspect. This was my only machine for 14 years!
Thanks for your answers, colleagues. This is a very nice forum!

[nostalgia]

Inigo: ! Oh, God! How I remember that smell of gramophones and how much I liked it.

That's it Inigo, I thought I was the only one in here loving the smell of old gramophones...

Thanks for telling your story about it all started, dedication and passion ! Great!

[Steve]

I currently have these:

HMV PAO
HMV Oak 100
HMV 100
HMV Teak 101
HMV 101 Deluxe grey
HMV 101 red leather / gold plated Deluxe
HMV 102 red leather / gold plated Deluxe
HMV Teak 112
HMV Teak 113
HMV Teak 114
Dulcephone (similar to HMV Pigmy Grand) in carrying case
Decca Teak Style 4
Decca Junior Nursery model (1926)
Decca 88 crocodile leather / gilt fittings
Decca 130 rounded case (1935)
Decca 90 blue crocodile case
Decca 30 Black in original packing box
Pathé unknown model tan stitched leather case
Pathé unknown model tan stitched leather case (crocodile grain) in canvas case
Pathé Olotonal in inlaid satinwood case
Pathé "micro portable" tan leather
Pathé "micro portable" black
Columbia 100
Columbia 112A Green crocodile case
Columbia 113A blue crocodile case
Columbia 202 (owned by Arnold Dolmetsch)
Columbia 9000A blue case
Alba Maestrophonic Deluxe 'Super' model gilt fittings
Unknown Polish model in burr walnut case
Phonos diaphragm model
Celeste Trench oak
Fixed Tonearm teak model / leather carrying case
Francis Salabert grained case
Russian "micro portable"

While not strictly "portable" I also have 2 HMV Style 1 Hornless models, one in a leather/ canvas carrying trunk and the other a rare colonial version with mitred and inset motorboard in a teak carrying case supplied by the dealer. All have carrying handles so presumably qualify as portable.

Also both double spring oak Pigmy Grand and single spring mahogany versions.

[CarlosV]

Some dozens: Victors from VV50 to VV2-65, HMVs from PBO to 102s in rexine, teak and leather, English and US Columbias, Pathés with paper cones, Pathés with metal arms, Edison P1, Stradivox, Salabert, Alba, Celeste Trench, German Gramola, Deccas, Paillard etc

[epigramophone]

Around 30 of my portables are serviced, wrapped up in plastic in this storage locker, and waiting for better days

Please keep an eye on them! I had one wrapped in plastic in the garage, and when I unwrapped it, condensation had ruined the covering.

That is good advice, especially where unheated storage lockers in Norway are concerned. There is also the risk of broken springs if a machine is moved from a cold place to a warm one and wound up without allowing time for it's temperature to stabilise.

Most of my portables live in spare bedrooms, in the bottoms of wardrobes and under the beds, where my wife thinks that they breed.

[NEKTREG]

I‘m mainly interested in Portable machines. There easy to buy via internet and were very popular in germany. Bigger machines in high quality are hard to get here, many people just had a portable while many of them even sounded better than a cheap tabletop!

I reduced my collection to a very small group in the last years. My main interesed is in german Loopingphon machines which are very rar. I have five of them and this is already a huge number.

The first photo was taken few years ago, before I moved:

[AZ*]

Too many!

I have at least 30 or so including the "mini" portables (cameraphones, Mikiphone, Excelda, etc.), the heavy HMV trans-portables (112, 113 & 118), the typical HMV 101s, 102s and Columbia and Victor machines plus others. One of the more interesting ones (to me at least) is a Gilbert with its bugle tonearm.

[Inigo]

Two colleagues have mentioned the Outing machines. I remember vividly a great advert for those in extinct magnificent magazine of our colleague Tim Gracyk, The Victrola And 78 Journal. He produced only 13 quarterly numbers, but they are full of interesting articles, contributions by him and other respected collector's an researchers as Jim Wakeman. He was who wrote a huge article about 263 American talking machine makers during the phonograph boom of the post WWI era. There was that firm, Outing. Tim published the article and asked lots of adverts of what were call the off-brand makes. That was great!

[Arthur5702]

Let’s see,
2 x HMV 102 one 1934 black and one 1956 in blue
3 x HMV 101 one 1931 in burgundy, one black side wind 1930, and one black front wind 1927
1 x HMV 100 with exhibition soundbox 1925
1 x Columbia 202 black 1930
1 x Gilbert portable - huge machine for a portable! 1928
1 x Decca four-four Art Deco machine 1930 Very pretty
1 x Decca Junior 1928
TOTAL 10.