Columbia Viva-Tonal No.153a, UK model

[dennman6]

I just picked up this Columbia Viva-Tonal No.153a yesterday in North Vernon, Indiana. Saw it on Craigslist for $100. It stands about 33" or 34" tall, & is comparable in size to a Victor VV-210/215 Victrola. This is a UK model, & the decal above the turntable mentions the "Columbia Graphophone Company, London, EC1". Underneath the turntable is a decal giving the model number. The pictures are the seller's from the ad & I expect to have my own pics up over the weekend. One of the springs is either weak, loose, or broken because it won't play all the way through a record(the record used was an electrical Gloria Greer Cameo, who we know is actually Vaughn De Leath). I am presuming it has a 2-spring motor, as I haven't had time to open it up yet. The horn is metal. The sound is quite crisp & punchy, but lacks the bass of any Orthophonic I've ever heard. Acoustic records sound nice on this. The tonearm is definitely Viva-Tonal, but I'm unsure if it has the No.15 reproducer. This is my first Columbia Viva-Tonal, the only other one I've heard belonged to Maginter who had a 700 or 800 series. The Craigslist ad on the No.154 is from a thread here on November 25, 2009. In that thread OrthoSean commented that he'd never seen a Viva-Tonal model with louvers rather than a grill. Well, here's another one. And there is no metal knob on the side to open the louvers like earlier Grafonolas, you just grab one of the wooden knobs on the front & move 'em that way. The British seemed to be a few years behind the USA in phonograph designs like they were in car designs, as this cabinet style looks like an earlier acoustic(pre-"Orthophonic" era) unit of 5 or 10 years before. If you look at a Bentley, Daimler, Rolls Royce from 1960 the rounded body styles recall the late 1940s American car designs. The cabinet is very good & should only need a cleaning & some Feed-N-Wax. This is a cute little machine, & will be a pleasure to work on.

[gramophoneshane]

These are a cute little machine. It's a pity it's been refinished, but that wont stop it from sounding good for it's size.
The thing I find strange is the decal, or is the tonearm?

The tonearm is definitely Viva-Tonal

I haven't seen a lot of Columbia cabinet machines here over the years so they cant have been too popular, but those I have seen with the "Plano-Reflex" tonearm (not Viva-Tonal) always included "Plano-Reflex" on the decal too.
I wonder if the tonearm is a replacement, or if perhaps it's an early example & the company fitted the new tonearm to existing cabinets to use them up?
A friend of mine in high school had an almost identical model, and it had the Plano-reflex arm & decal, but it too had doors & a grille like you mentioned above, so I guess the could be a kind of transition model, and the old Viva-Tonal models had louvers & the Plano-Reflex had doors.
When you pull out the spring, just check it hasn't been shortened for a repair. Normally even the smallest Garrard motors run find with sold grease & no oil.

The British seemed to be a few years behind the USA in phonograph designs like they were in car designs....
If you look at a Bentley, Daimler, Rolls Royce from 1960 the rounded body styles recall the late 1940s American car designs

That's hilarious
It's not that they were "behind" at all, but that they were more conservative.
Over here, we got a strange sort of blend of UK & US styling when General Motors-Holden first opened, but UK influences were gone within a decade because we liked em big & loud like the Americans.

[dennman6]

Are you sure it's been refinished? It looks like the golden oak finish in my VV-X, c.1921. My surmise was the 153 is oak, & the 154 in the Craigslist ad is mahogany, hence the model number difference. Here is a pic from a Sherlockauctioneers.co.uk ad & an e-Bay listing of a 1927 as showing the 153 for 14.10 pounds.

[gramophoneshane]

Pretty sure. It should be at least as dark as the interior. Normally these later oak Columbias tend to turn almost black on the exterior, which is probably the reason it was stripped.
Mahogany machines on the other hand had a tendancy to fade on the outside. Whatever mahogany stain they were using over there was, it didn't cope with UV very well. Mahogany fades over time naturally anyway, but you'll see an aweful lot of mid to late 20s British machines of any brand that have faded badly, so I think it has more to do with the new stains & lacquers they all used when they switched from shellac finishes.

[dennman6]

Shane, as I look this over I'm sure you're right. The interior is darker, like the mahogany example in the Craigslist ad. The oak finish seems to be carefully done, to fool the eye of a casual observer. Notice the gasket where the tonearm meets the horn. Isn't that too nice to be an original, & wouldn't there have been a thicker gasket there? Here are some pictures taken this morning showing a better view of the metal horn & a closeup of the tonearm & reproducer. If the tonearm is a later add-on rather than a transitional original, at least it's still a Columbia piece & period appropriate. It still sounds pretty good!

[JHolmesesq]

I have this advert for a Columbia gramophone, it looks pretty similar to your model. Apologies on the scan quality, I can take a photo with my camera of the detail if you wish

[dennman6]

I have this advert for a Columbia gramophone, it looks pretty similar to your model. Apologies on the scan quality, I can take a photo with my camera of the detail if you wish

Yes, JHolmesq, I would like to see that ad a little better. I'd appreciate it. This Columbia I have seems to be an odd duck, & seems to be a 1927 or 1928 model. Thanks again!

[dennman6]

And here is a No.154a that has the same cabinet style but the older Columbia tonearm(no ball bearings), which looks like it's fitted with a Viva-Tonal reproducer. According to Gramophoneshane mine has the "Plano-Reflex" tonearm, which feels smooth enough in action I think it does have the ball bearings-haven't disassembled the arm(and might not:). Much for me to learn about the Columbias of this period. And Baumbach's Columbia Disc Graphophone & Grafonola book is out of print, so my learning curve will be slower:)

[recordo]

My little Columbia portable, model 112a (made in England) has the plano reflex tone arm and the same viva tonal decal the machine in this thread has. Yours has the number 15 soundbox, mine has the number 9.

Edit: just found the thread where I posted pictures of my 112a. http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... f=2&t=6162

Regards, Glenn.

[gramophoneshane]

Strange, but I'm having trouble finding a picture on the net showing the "Plano-Reflex" decal. From what I remember, the decal looked the same as the one above, but it had Plano Reflex across it. I'm now wondering if this may have been a separate decal placed across the old one, and if it only appeared on the earliest machines that used the arm? I really dont know
One thing I did come across was that the "a" after the model number was to designate the use of the plano arm, so a 153 would have the old arm, and a 153a would have the Plano-Reflex.
Also, several sources indicate the Plano-Reflex was introduced for the 1929 model line, as shown in the scan posted by Jim in the thread below.

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... w=previous