EBay UK - Gafonola 204

[Lah Ca]

EBay UK - Gafonola 204

It looks like a machine that was loved and well cared for, although it is currently non-functional.

It is pick up only, but I don't see where the seller lists location.

Current bid: £1.20 Less than two days left.

Seller's description:

"Columbia Grafonola No 204 - needs repair or service. Collection only.

Please do look at the photos for the condition. The turntable does turn briefly when you wind the winding handle, but it is in need of repair or servicing.

The gramophone was the pride and joy of my mum and she had it from new sometime in the 1930s.

As you can see from the photos, I've included the original instruction manual and tins of spare needles."

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/404175723443 ... %3A2047675

[Phono48]

Next to the HMV 101 and 102, probably the most common machine seen on UK ebay. Nice little machine, with the superb Columbia 15 soundbox, but the need for a new spring, (around the £45 mark) and the lack of any location information doesn't make it a tempting purchase.

Barry

[Lah Ca]

The location, Shrewsbury, was later added to the listing.

It went for £3.20, which I assume was a good price for the sound box, good condition case, manual, and needle tins.

[epigramophone]

My Columbia 204 occupies a unique place in my collection, having been in the family since new.
It was a 21st Birthday present for my favourite aunt in 1934, and she left it to me when she died in 1963.
As can be seen from the picture, it often accompanied me to classic car shows.

[Phono48]

That was indeed a good price, but the sellers unwillingness to post would have put a lot of bidders off.
Barry

[Steve]

It's not a great machine really, is it? Most buyers don't seem to want Columbia anyway (mad fools!) But the 204 is the equivalent to an HMV 97 or worse. They're not exactly inspirational machines and most buyers want the better models understandably.

The seller's reticence to post is typically foolhardy and common on Ebay. I think it sold for more than its worth unless the buyer lived in the next road and can simply walk around to collect the soundbox.

[VanEpsFan1914]

Here's the wild part--In America, with most portable gramophones being cardboard-and-diecast machines from the '30s-'50s, or incredibly obsolete pre-Orthophonic jobs in ponderous cases, you don't see as many UK type portables.

The little portables over on your side of the herring-pond are manna in the gramophonic desert when they are here. I love my Grafonola 202--it's definitely fancier than the 204 here; still, even the 204 would be better than the generic ones.

(And even a generic Waters-Conley Phonola is still way better than nothing at all.)

[Lah Ca]

My Columbia 204 occupies a unique place in my collection, having been in the family since new.
It was a 21st Birthday present for my favourite aunt in 1934, and she left it to me when she died in 1963.
As can be seen from the picture, it often accompanied me to classic car shows.

Lovely! Thanks for sharing.

[Inigo]

The sound quality of HMV 101 and 102, and the Columbias of the electric era are the best in Europe (ok, there are very good sounding Thorens and Paillard machines). Maybe in USA the only comparable machines in sound are the big Columbia portables 160/161/163 and the early orthophonic portable Victrolas... Hi...! You're not that bad...!
Other thing may be that these American portables are too scarce today, compared with the floods of equivalent portables in Europe...