SOLD: 1911 L-Door VV-XVI - $350

[Cody K]

Brian, I'd love to be more helpful about transport but that lil' economic crash in 2008 hit me hard, and was followed by one personal emergency after another for a long while. Long story short, I don't even own a car again yet. (I figured keeping the house was a better bet!) I've been able to drag home my crowd of Victrolas with well-timed luck and help from one neighbor or another. If there's been any distance involved (usually not) I've paid for the help accordingly. To sell this L-Door at a low price and pay for help moving it too would be kind of counterproductive. As I just wrote in a PM to another forum member, I guess I may be stuck with it for awhile...worse things could happen I suppose. I know I'm not gonna part it out -- just can't do it. I'm just surprised that no one from the Boston area (where it's been on Craigslist for a couple of weeks) has come and snatched it!

[Lucius1958]

Aw, Bill, c'mon. You can find some space! Look around you. There's gotta be something you can put on Craigslist to open up some room! That's how I got to point I'm at now, where 90% of my furniture is tall-case Victrolas. For awhile, anything that was nice, but couldn't play music, was out the door!

But seriously, folks...

I'm honestly surprised that I can't move this out pretty quickly to someone within a hundred-seventy-five-mile radius of Providence (which, let's face it, this state is so small that that radius encompasses most of the Eastern seaboard!) at so low a price. It has 99% visual integrity intact and original. The only real flaw is the hack-job underneath the motorboard, but that's completely invisible with the motorboard in place. The missing 1% involves the slight and barely-visible repairs to the horn, and the faint ghost of a water mark on the lid. And it plays well, with a quiet motor.

I took a good long look at this thing today and I realized that I canNOT part it out. That'd be like re-homing a dog by chopping it up and making separate craigslist listings for each part. This is a very good machine with some significant, if not immense, historic value, in excellent condition, and it deserves to exist another hundred and four years, at least. It's a good investment, too: I estimate that a hundred and four years from now, if preserved now, this particular machine will be conservatively valued at twenty-two million dollars; if it isn't, I will guarantee whoever buys it from me a refund of 200% of their purchase price, no questions asked. Y'all have that iron-clad guarantee in writing, right here, right now.

Plus, c'mon guys. Think Christmas! Is there anyone here whose wife (or other significant other) wouldn't be thrilled to have her/his very own Victrola?

Dang it, you're tempting me: I had sworn to myself to lay off any new machines for a while...

I could possibly rearrange my current "early Collyer Bros." decor to accept it; but then the question of transportation comes to mind. I was just able to fit a C-250 (sans casters) into the back seat of my Corolla - about 50" X 21" X 22 ½" - but if the VV-XVI is any larger, I might have to call on the loan of a minivan; and I'm not sure how that would be received...

On the other hand, it would boost the Victor section of my collection by a third...

-Bill

[Cody K]

That's the spirit, Bill! The L-Door is a "mere" 48½ x 22" x 23", with lid and casters on. Another member (one of our resident Edison aficionados) managed to fit my departing C-19 into his back seat some time ago, to my amazement. I don't remember what kind of car he had, but he assured me he'd had plenty of practice. We did take the lid off that one, tho.

[Lucius1958]

You've got me: I will make the trip to see it, and very possibly buy it.

I should really get a hand truck for handling cases like this: I had to manhandle the C-250 case through the front door...

At the moment, I have Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays pretty free.

Bill

[Cody K]

Well, terrific! Let's take the details to PM and we can sort scheduling out. I'm sure you'll like this machine.

Re: handtrucks, I have one, but haven't used it in quite a while since one of the wheels lost its hub (which I found on the cellar floor, didn't recognize, and tossed out. Quite an accomplishment, to toss out something necessary, considering how much certifiably useless junk in the basement goes unmolested year after year). Thing is, I always found it less helpful than I wanted it to be when moving phonographs, because of the phonographs' legs. It needed a board underneath the phonograph to keep the legs from dragging, and that made the whole operation less stable, so the phonograph would need to be strapped to the hand truck. Ultimately it seemed a lot less complicated to carry the thing up the stairs without messing with wheels. Even with my aging-back issues, that's been easier. It takes two people, but once or twice the other person's been a woman (not a power-lifting woman, either), and we'd get it up the stairs without too much trouble.

When I got the 8-35 in September (the beast that started this whole drive to sell the L-Door to free up some space), my neighbor insisted on using his hand truck. By the time we got up the four or five steps to the porch, we agreed that we might as well just carry it up to the second floor. That damn thing weighs as much as a small hippopotamus, and I'm sure I'd rather carry the hippopotamus upstairs, since a.) a hippopotamus doesn't have sharp corners, b.)the hippopotamus's "original finish" is far more resilient than that of a 1928 Victrola, and c.)the hippopotamus would be more likely to bend, at least a little, around corners. I'm still recovering from the 8-35. But luckily, a XVI weighs probably not much more than a nine-month-old great dane, and is much narrower than the wide-bodied 8-35. Plus gravity will be on hand to help. We're old (well, at least I am) but we can do this.

Pretty sure we can fit it into your car, too...

Check your PM.

[Henry]

That's the spirit, Bill! The L-Door is a "mere" 48½ x 22" x 23", with lid and casters on. Another member (one of our resident Edison aficionados) managed to fit my departing C-19 into his back seat some time ago, to my amazement. I don't remember what kind of car he had, but he assured me he'd had plenty of practice. We did take the lid off that one, tho.

Hey, I moved my XI in a '64 VW Beetle; anything (almost) is possible! And I didn't even know enough, at that time, to take out the motor board. That would have lightened the thing up considerably.

[Hit of the Week]

Hey, I moved my XI in a '64 VW Beetle; anything (almost) is possible! And I didn't even know enough, at that time, to take out the motor board. That would have lightened the thing up considerably.[/quote]


Ha!.......That remind's me of year's ago, when I collected radio's.....Went to an auction & bought 3 console radios........& hauled them ALL home at the same time in a '67 Beetle!!!

Thanx for the "memory jog"!
Dale

[victorIIvictor]

"I could possibly rearrange my current 'early Collyer Bros.' decor to accept it"

That's all right. It's the **late** Collyer Bros. decor that you have to guard against.

Best wishes, Mark

[TinfoilPhono]

Hey, I moved my XI in a '64 VW Beetle; anything (almost) is possible!

When I moved west after college I packed 12 phonographs into a '66 beetle, along with all of my clothes and household possessions to start a new life. Today I can't even imagine how I did it.

Of course there were no uprights among those machines.

[Jerry B.]

Since we're telling good stories and keeping Cody's L-door at the top of the list... DeeDee and I drove home from Victoria, BC to Albany, OR with an oak XVI tied to the roof rack of a little '76 Honda Civic. Once it was wrapped in packing blankets and plastic, it seemed about as big as the car. The border guards were more concerned about the contents inside the apple box. Once they saw the mechanism and records it was a quick wave through. It was probably 1977 and I still enjoy that Victrola and I've been a friend of Don M ever since. Jerry