The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

78's. Varying luck, but I know among my locals who's worth looking and who's not.

I'd like to find cylinders, too, but that almost never happens in antique shoppes. Outside of maybe once a year or two years.

I have been lucky the last two years at an annual antique show in my area. Antique dealers from all over bring their best with the hope of selling, and that usually includes some nice phonographs. Prices are fair since the dealers don't want to haul them back home again. Got a nice Amberola 50 with 30 BAs last year.

Seems all the antique shops I go to, the dealers think everything is made of Gold!

Nowadays I'm looking mainly for records; it's getting harder to find the 'good stuff' these days - at least around here.

Bill

I haven't bought any machines from an antique shop in nearly a decade. Interesting 78s occasionally turn up in junk or charity shops, and sometimes they are priced sensibly - but quite often even common rubbish is £3 each. I've seen discs that I'd want paying to store, offered for sale at £5 each. It's just insane. They probably paid £5 for the box full, and were ripped off at that. It's a strange game to be in these days - for smaller items, it seems that antique shops are only there for people who treat browsing and shopping as a time-filling leisure activity (like large shopping malls are for some women). People who want to buy (or even want to sell) go elsewhere. Given the amount of stuff that sits unsold in some antique shops for a year or more, I've always wondered if it's somehow some kind of tax-dodge that I don't know about?!?

As for pricing a wrecked old portable gramophone, the model seems to be: search for pristine examples on eBay, find the highest price ever paid, double it, and charge that.

Cheers,
David.

Player-Tone wrote:I have been lucky the last two years at an annual antique show in my area. Antique dealers from all over bring their best with the hope of selling, and that usually includes some nice phonographs. Prices are fair since the dealers don't want to haul them back home again. Got a nice Amberola 50 with 30 BAs last year.

And the name and location of that show would be?

Clay

I'm always looking for decent record dusters - I prefer the round Celluloid advertising type with different color felt material on the bottoms. The most common ones of course are the Decca Record ones, especially Bing Crosby, Guy Lombardo, the Andrew Sisters, The Ink Spots, Victor, etc. People (on EBay) think thay are worth a bundle! Most were made by the Philadelphia Badge Co. I have over 200 - all different, some wood but I prefer the round Celluloid types.

I'm a scrounger and garbage picker. Always have been always will be.