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I have, what I believe is a Circassian Walnut XVI---thought my 230 was Circassian, but that might be just American Walnut---not sure. What is the XVI going for?

emerson wrote:I have, what I believe is a Circassian Walnut XVI---thought my 230 was Circassian, but that might be just American Walnut---not sure. What is the XVI going for?

I just visited the link to the Estate "sale" site... looks like the pieces are being liquidated at auction.


My humble opinion is that the XVI is Circassian Walnut. Too much figure for "American Walnut" to my eyes...

I agree with Frank.........Circassian Walnut. Also IMHO....

Dale

Here are high resolution photos. http://www.auctiondetroit.com/LotDetail ... 0-44-22-20

Don't you wish you could buy it for their estimate of $200- $400 !!!!!

Dale

Hit of the Week wrote:Don't you wish you could buy it for their estimate of $200- $400 !!!!!

Dale

Oh boy, would I. There is nothing quite as beautiful to my eyes as a circasian walnut phonograph. I have seen several up close and I understand why they are so coveted.

I received a report from a friend who inspected the Victrola this morning. This has apparently been sitting in some water as the casters are a frozen ball of rust and the finish is gone from the legs. There is some crazing on the lid and evidence of heat/sun damage on one side. Also, there is a patch on the left side where a large piece of veneer was replaced. The grain and color of the patch do not match the rest of the cabinet. Otherwise, the Victrola is in decent condition.

Silvertone wrote:I received a report from a friend who inspected the Victrola this morning. This has apparently been sitting in some water as the casters are a frozen ball of rust and the finish is gone from the legs. There is some crazing on the lid and evidence of heat/sun damage on one side. Also, there is a patch on the left side where a large piece of veneer was replaced. The grain and color of the patch do not match the rest of the cabinet. Otherwise, the Victrola is in decent condition.

That's not where veneer has been replaced. It's where there was originally a flaw in the veneer, like a knot maybe, that the cabinet maker removed. There are many patches like that on this machine and they are book matched, just like the flaw would have been. If anything, you could say that this cabinet didn't get the very best grade of veneer from day one. I'd be more suspicious of what looks like a huge veneer bubble on the left side.

Those patches are very interesting. The "H" XVIs were in production during WWI, and Victor's inventory of Circassian must have been running low. I've never seen one of these with such patches. They're artfully done, and make for an interesting historical anomaly.

George P.

We have a few pieces of similarly book-matched veneered furniture, and I've seen many more. The "patching" practice is quite common, and was done to varying degrees of artfulness based on the available materials and skill of the cabinetmaker.

Heavily burled wood would be more fragile and when sliced thin for book-matching, the knottier bits might easily disintegrate and force the use of patches.

Here's an armoire of ours, double book-matched, and patched like crazy but still looking pretty good.

But now, having said all that, I'm also thinking that Victor would require the premium priced models such as this to have minimal patching, if any, and so this patching may indeed be anomalous - or a sign of practicality. So the theory of being forced to patch by virtue of running out of Circassian stock might hold water, too.