H. F. Shipley (Frederick, MD) and a VV-IV

[jboger]

I went to an auction about 15 miles north of Frederick, MD. There on a table was a dilapidated VV-IV. It looked a mess. It was fully cranked. I played with the brake--no go. I bought it. When I got the machine home, I removed the lid and discovered the problem: a broken governor spring. The motor also needed a complete cleaning. Inside the case was an envelope, and inside the envelope were two governor springs. I used one of them to repair the governor. As for the machine it is now running and sounds quite good.

A picture of the envelope is below along with the broken governor spring and one of the two springs found in the envelope. I did a quick web search for H. F. Shipley and got a relevant hit: http://www.mountolivethistory.com/stori ... stmas-past. The article is an interesting look back into a different time. Shipley had a store in Frederick and sold, amongst other things, a line of Victor phonographs. I extracted one of the figures from the article and placed it here in this post. You can see Santa holding up a VV-IV, the price of which was $15, probably a hefty sum ca. 1915.

The auctioneer who sold the machine cleans out local estates. I have no smoking gun that says Shipley sold my machine, but that does seem a distinct possibility.

John

[MarkELynch]

John, thanks for posting about your machine and also the well-researched story of the Shipley “Temple of Fancy” in Frederick, MD

I can only add this artifact to the discussion.

Mark
Silver Spring, MD

[jboger]

Mark:

Very interesting. Now I wonder if other Shipley items have survived, like a duster. Would have been nice if he had put his label on the machines he sold.

John