The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

The mount on #4 looks a whole lot like Sonora, but theirs that I’ve seen have their name proudly engraved behind the mica, and various patent info and such on the back. I’ve seen other generic “no name” brand reproducers like this that have the same type mount, and also with a different style of mount screwed on.

New arrival to the group and saw this after posting my own question. Did you ever learn more about the Watchtower reproducer (#2)? It looks exactly like the one I'm trying to replace, although ours is on a cabinet phonograph vs portable.

Hi- I saw your post earlier- There's lots of good info on the forum.. smart and experienced people. I've searched and see that this was a somewhat "generic" reproducer used on many portables of the era. If you're interested in mine, PM me. I had planned to put all of them on the Yankee Trader soon.

Brad Abell

KZurch wrote:New arrival to the group and saw this after posting my own question. Did you ever learn more about the Watchtower reproducer (#2)? It looks exactly like the one I'm trying to replace, although ours is on a cabinet phonograph vs portable.

That reproducer is likely not original to your machine, as they were mainly made for portables. Yours looks like a goose neck tonearm so it would have originally had a Victor #2 or an exhibition. You'll sometimes find these portable reproducers on cabinet machines as an attempt to upgrade them to play later 20s early 30s records.

Benjamin_L wrote:

KZurch wrote:New arrival to the group and saw this after posting my own question. Did you ever learn more about the Watchtower reproducer (#2)? It looks exactly like the one I'm trying to replace, although ours is on a cabinet phonograph vs portable.

That reproducer is likely not original to your machine, as they were mainly made for portables. Yours looks like a goose neck tonearm so it would have originally had a Victor #2 or an exhibition. You'll sometimes find these portable reproducers on cabinet machines as an attempt to upgrade them to play later 20s early 30s records.

It's not a Victor phonograph, although those reproducers would certainly be good choices.

JerryVan wrote:
It's not a Victor phonograph, although those reproducers would certainly be good choices.

My mistake, Jerry, it just looked like a goose neck tonearm in KZurch's photo to me as I didn't see his other post.