The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

It depends on whether you look at this as a business or a hobby. If it's a hobby, you care more about the intact machine than a few dollars more. If it's a business, you are in the wrong line of work because there are MUCH easier ways to make a living than to part off ancient phonographs.

bigshot wrote:It depends on whether you look at this as a business or a hobby. If it's a hobby, you care more about the intact machine than a few dollars more. If it's a business, you are in the wrong line of work because there are MUCH easier ways to make a living than to part off ancient phonographs.

My sentiment exactly. Unfortunately some "dealers" seem to have no problem with chasing the few extra bucks, or even go as far as faking items. I just avoid these people.

jboger wrote:Well, not pointless. There's a number of issues here. There are pros and cons. Anyway, if so pointless, then don't bother to respond. Besides, grammophone78, are you the self-appointed monitor of what is allowed on the Forum?

As for "trolling," I don't really know where that comes from. Seems a bit mean-spirited though. People post things on this Forum for a variety of reasons, for information, for help, and sometimes just to communicate with other people who have a similar interest and talk about what's going on.

When one starts a thread you don't know in advance where the conversation may lead. A related question to my original post is, what about taking parts off a fully functional more common machine and using them on a different but rarer machine? But any chance of that dialogue has been killed.

Bill, if you are reading this, see, this is what I mean. I haven't put a post on this Forum for a couple of months. I think it's sayonara. For those people whose IQs don't reach to 79, that's Japanese for goodbye.

Neither the trolling comment, nor the pointless comment were pointed at your original post but at the suggestion the conversation had no place on a talking machine forum. They were both defending your thread. Please read both again and reconsider condemning your defenders as low IQ imbeciles. Lol.

While this is controversial, it is a interesting thread.

First of all, back in the summer I picked up a VV-XI off of craigslist, I was a fool and paid $ 225.00 for this machine. Got home and discovered the tone arm, reproducer, speed control, crank, escutcheon and brake were all swapped. I ended up obtaining alot of these parts from forum members. I could not have done it without them, even if I could, it would cost me more than I could afford. Shame on the owner of this machine, I am certain that the guy or someone he purchased it from swapped all of the parts, and selling the hardware for a external horn Victor. In this case, it seems the person was wrong.

Finally, there are parts dealers out there who exist as a business, they have troves of junk machines and some are probably who machines in good condition...who knows? I will admit I have purchased some parts from one of the individuals that some suspect is a machine stripper. All in all they have helped me to restore some nice machines. Again, its a tough call...whats the condition of the machine being parted out? Who knows. The bottom line is, unless a part has been made as a reproduction, there are no other alternatives than "original parts". My problem is with those that part out good condition machines just for the sake of making some money on parts, to me that is wrong.

All in all, I spoke to one dealer back in 2011, he said he would not sell me a tone arm for a early VV-IV, he said he would have to have $800.00 as it would be for I believe he said for a Victor I. I was bummed, as I think the lowly early Victor should be equally restored to a Victor external horn machine. This seems to be a huge problem, early Victor Victrola's use same parts as external horn machines, which make restoring a earlier Victrola non-feasible from a monetary standpoint.

bbphonoguy wrote: In fact, I wish antiques were completely worthless; then I could get all I want!

I hear that !

My initial response was a knee-jerk,spectacular, Shakespeare/Fran Lebowitz-inspired rant. However, me thinks we are being baited for amusement. Damn!

Victrolacollector wrote:This seems to be a huge problem, early Victor Victrola's use same parts as external horn machines, ...

At large this is correct, but even if parts seem to match, there have been slight changes in the production process.

This is another reason why genuine machines shouldn't be disassembled. We need them as historical source. For example: Are you sure that the serial number of your Exhibition reproducer matches the serial number of your gramophone?

Naturally, my friend Starkton does not mean to imply that sound boxes and machines should have matching numbers, but that the numerical ranges should be appropriate (e.g.: early numbers together; mid ranges together; late ranges...).

George P.

Thank you, George, for clarification.