The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Three very nice machines that I would be proud to have!

Sweet addition, Adam. Just right for a picnic -- in warmer weather, of course!

Thanks, John.

By the way, I've posted some YouTube videos of some of these in action, in the Music subforum...

There have been three versions of the crocodile-grained leather cloth:

- blue = SB
- grey = GC
- brown = BC

The antique brown veining which appeared in 1929 is very rare. I only saw one machine in about ten years of collecting HMV portables. It is a grained leather but not a crocodile looking leather. All other surfaces were plain.

The identification plates changed over the years. The metal ones usually shows the model number. The ivorine indentifying plates only shows the serial number, but not the colour code and the version figure.

Jake

So, in your opinion, is the one pictured above the brown crocodile, or the grey?

From all the information others have supplied, and the fact that this croco one is definitely earlier than 1929, it must be grey, not brown. Odd, though!

All machines acuured after mid 1928. You can identify this on the new transfer used on the record panel in the lid (by the way: the picture below Shows the early transfer...)

According to the parts used on the machines the green and the blue one are from the productions series K or L from 1929/30. The croc one is definitely brown thus BC. The colour GC is much paler. You can see this on the picture below:



You can have a look on my portable collection here http://thesymbolofsupremacy.blogspot.de/
There are a lot of detailed Pictures.
Some of the machines have the german HMV badge -> Electrola. The Electrola machines are identical to the machines produced in Hayes/GB. The only difference is the Electrola-badge and the Electrola-marked soundbox.

Jacob Black wrote:The croc one is definitely brown thus BC. The colour GC is much paler. You can see this on the picture below

Thanks for making this clear. It's very much appreciated.

Yes, thanks for the clarification, Jake. I should have looked in my copy of Dave Cooper's book in the first place. It is definitely "brown" (though it still looks tan to me!).

(By the way, be sure to click on the photos below to see the full-sized versions for greater detail)