Just Amazing

[phonophan79]

There was one of these at the Wayne parking lot meet back in October.

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... ilit=wayne

Does anyone know how much the one in Wayne sold for?

[JohnM]

Not to take anything away from the Multiphone, but even rarer and more unusual is the 1906 Skelly Concertophone that played 6" 'Twentieth Century' cylinders upon a coin-operated Type BC Graphophone mech. The cylinders are suspended on a chain loop and are actually removed from the chain and slid onto the mandrel (and vice-versa) with little gripper 'fingers'. To my knowledge, there is only one Concertophone. It was for sale for years in an antique store in Redlands, California back in the 60's. Eventually went into Wendell Moore's collection in Jeffersonville, Indiana (and Sedona, Arizona for a time). Then to Dave Heitz' collection. I don't know where it is now . . . Jasper's? Dominic's?

[brianu]

this seems like one worth preserving for purposes of the thread and forum, no?

[brianu]

... and it really does seem a bit on the shiny side. I'd love to know the provenance of this one. it's definitely a super rare machine, but 135k seems beyond excessive... I mean, hasn't the most expensive phonograph ever - as in EVER - to sell, at least so far as what's publicly known, "only" gone for like
like, half that figure?

[estott]

It's a rare machine, but certainly nothing like the unique machine you'd expect at that price.

[JohnM]

$75K for a Moorish-marquetry VTLA/L-door XVI (not sure which model it actually is) at auction back in about 2001 is the highest price of which I'm aware.

[phono10]

Not true, I know of two that have come up for market in the past year. One multiphone in great original condition sold privately for over 100,000. The other was being offered at over 100,000 also I think it is this one. If you could get one for half that it would be a steal. Also if there are only 20 in the country that would still be rare. A lot of the really rare machines do not reach public market because there are only 4-5 buyers with the ability to buy such expensive items. When I worked for many years at a large New York auction house it was the same way. Often an item would be sold privately to a famous collector because there was such a small market for the super high end items.

[brianu]

Not true, I know of two that have come up for market in the past year. One multiphone in great original condition sold privately for over 100,000. The other was being offered at over 100,000 also I think it is this one. If you could get one for half that it would be a steal. Also if there are only 20 in the country that would still be rare. A lot of the really rare machines do not reach public market because there are only 4-5 buyers with the ability to buy such expensive items. When I worked for many years at a large New York auction house it was the same way. Often an item would be sold privately to a famous collector because there was such a small market for the super high end items.

right... but like everyone on these forums points out on virtually a daily basis, rarity does not necessarily equate to ultra high value. and you may be right that the sale of certain excessively pricey things may not reach the open market because there are only a handful of expected possible buyers - but just as often, such sales are publicized for other reasons, to flaunt the sale or transaction to show that investments are healthy in a certain sector, or for the mere curiosity/entertainment aspect of some affluent personage throwing millions at some random novelty, etc. and so far as exchanges through private sales goes, word of them still often gets out among the collecting community, particularly in regard to the more or less extremely rare pieces.

also, you can offer a machine - such as the 100,000 one you mentioned above - for sale for as long and as much as you want, that doesn't by any stretch provide a sense of value/worth for it until someone has actually paid that sum for it. so, just because you say you know of one of these that sold privately for 100,000, I don't think I would translate that to, hmmm, if I can get the 135k one for half that price it would be a steal. I mean, really.

[Steve]

I agree with Brian on several points. The problem for sellers / buyers when it comes to the seriously rare stuff is that there is often no price guide to work to or any comparables. The rarer the item, the less it appears for sale, the fewer 'prior results' you have to refer back to. No one knows what to charge or pay for anything. When something is so rare than only 1% of the population who might want it, can actually afford it, you often see the buyer at auction paying 'uniquely high' sums of money BECAUSE THEY CAN AFFORD IT and they're protected in the safe knowledge that another specimen won't turn up anytime soon.

As for the rest of us poor mortals, we have to make sense of these prices in our minds, but saying that half an exhorbatant sum would be a bargain, is no more realistic than saying twice the high sum paid would not be enough.

[brianu]

a fairly recent thread on another forum involved a similar discussion of a sonora supreme (an upscale machine with bombe cabinet) and accompanying matching record storage cabinet (also in the bombe style). the seller made a few posts, along with a few not so flattering images of the stuff, while the tone of his writing seemed to grow increasingly - and delusionally optimistically - certain and defensive of the fact that the set had to be worth $50,000... even though he couldn't identify another such machine that had sold for that much (the fact that there weren't any only reassured him of the thing's rarity and value), and even though he, according to his post, would never consider letting such a "special" object go but had to sell for financial reasons... except he also was certain (regardless of what he paid for it, which never came up) that it had to sell for 50k lest he be doing himself and the set-up some sort of severe fiscal injustice. most of the posts in response, to varying degrees of polite accomodation, stressed the fact that rarity does not equal value, that such a set-up was definitely worth some money, but still a fraction of what the seller expected... and one poster even mentioned that it had been offered to an acquaintance of his for like, 20k, but he passed.

also, I failed to notice before that the writer of the post above (in defense of the 135k asking price for the subject of this thread) mentioned knowing of two of these machines in the 100k range, one that he know of that sold privately, "The other was being offered at over 100,000 also I think it is this one"... does that mean that of the two he says he knows of, one was a private transaction, and the other involved this very machine now on ebay? how that justifies a 35 percent mark-up I have no idea, but if the current seller did pick it up for 100, if it's that easy for him to be able to flip it for 135 and make that kind of quick profit, I would imagine that a lot more people would be doing this, no? I mean, it can't be that hard to pay top dollar for a super rare machine, then offer it for resale more publicly at a substantial mark-up (although ultimately reselling it at such a mark-up, let alone at all, is an entirely different matter).