Columbia Viva Tonal Electrics

[marcapra]

Here are some pics of two different Columbia-Kolster Viva Tonals model 901 phonographs. One of them has a conventional looking pickup and the other has a square pickup. The one with the square pickup was found on an auction site in New Zealand. It comes with the original 1928 receipt from Christchurch, N.Z. You'll see that the selling price of 148 Pounds was a quite a bit higher than the list price of $475 given in the Baumbach book. I'll have to check the exchange rate to see how much of a price hike that was back then.

[PeterF]

That receipt is not for dollars, it's for British pounds. In 1928 - 1929, according to online resources, a pound was worth almost five dollars.

[marcapra]

Wow, if the Pound was worth about $5, then the buyer didn't get any discount at all, but paid a healthy premium. At 148 Pounds, that would have been over $700!

[PeterF]

Makes some sense, if you figure that such goods must've commanded premium prices as overseas luxury imports.

[Kiwi]

So is the square pickup on the New Zealand machine still original?

[marcapra]

I do know personally of a few intact machines out there. Usually when I find one it is just the cabinet as you mentioned. I also run across pieces and parts from time to time. One interesting point was the design was the arm and pick up. The horseshoe pick up was mounted in a yoke so that it pivoted. The arm stayed parallel to the motor board the entire time and supported itself. This way there was reduced tracking weight on the record. It was similar in appearance to Capehart's 1930's pick up just without the zero tangent swivel feature. The supporting arm was an interesting 1920's fluid form looking a little whimsical and fluid - right out of cartoon.

Yes, it appears that the square pickup is original. Just look at that yoke style tonearm that allows you to flip just the pickup. To change the needle, all you had to do was lift the pickup, not the whole tonearm like on other phonographs of the time. The thing is, I don't know if the first picture showing a 901 with a conventional tonearm is also original or not. Maybe it was an earlier example?

[Uncle Vanya]

That Columbia arm is quite fragile, and is frequently found with pot metal disease. The machine withnthemconventional arm appears to be using an RCA Victor pickup on the straight arm. This combination was found on those Illustrovox machines.

[ChuckA]

I wish I had been there, I would have bought it on the spot. The 980 looks very interesting, even though Baumbach's book just shows a sketch of one. 14" speaker was very large for 1928! They probably had a TRF radio.

These pictures were sent to me years ago when I was looking for a 980, the owner wasn't interested in selling it, but sent Polaroids.



The albums you see are actually part of the cabinet






And this is some publicity photo with an 860, maybe a low budget film. The name attached to it was "Lee Million" never found out if that was the girls name or what.


Chuck

[howardpgh]

That must be a huge phonograph or a small woman.

[ChuckA]

That must be a huge phonograph or a small woman.

Now here is huge and small women:


Crosley WLW, 5ft high, 4ft wide, and 475 pounds.


Chuck