The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

The VM finish is too ornate for my taste. But to each his own.

Skihawx wrote:

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My daughters room in the old house. She liked the Circassian
Walnut machines too!

Another beautiful machine tastefully placed in an ideal location in the room. Who could object to that???

Sold the house before we finished this room. Actually this is
an addition to the house but I did everything possible to make it
match.

I assume that's an XVIII in walnut? Do you still have it? It would be nice to hear the story behind it and would make a good "featured phono" here too if you have lots of good pictures.

Regarding the house, you certainly did make it match to the extent I can see. High ceilings, wide mopboards, beautiful hardwood floors and appropriate lighting...

Valecnik wrote: appropriate lighting...

Is that a gas bracket?

In new construction!

The Vernis-Martin is great, but I would rather have one with the japanese lacquer finish. My dream machine is a VV-230 with japanese lacquer!

Those were turn of the century gas candles. I had restored the gas lighting
all through the house. The room with the walnut XVIII was new and I put the
gas pipes in the walls but didn't hook them up. I needed to pass inspections
and didn't want to have to explain live gas lines. I was going to hook them
up later. My guess is the new owner will not. That was a neat old house.
Quite a bit different than our 1989 saltbox like house. Here is a picture of the
front and back parlors. The fixture in the back parlor is a combination the
one in the front was straight gas.



We just moved and all the phonographs are kind of piled up in one room. Once
the house gets fixed up I will take more photos.

Oh, I love it!! How could you leave it?? I've often felt I must have been born in the wrong generation... nearly the wrong century. Thank you for sharing the pictures.

Skihawx wrote:Those were turn of the century gas candles. I had restored the gas lighting
all through the house. The room with the walnut XVIII was new and I put the
gas pipes in the walls but didn't hook them up. I needed to pass inspections
and didn't want to have to explain live gas lines. I was going to hook them
up later. My guess is the new owner will not. That was a neat old house.
Quite a bit different than our 1989 saltbox like house. Here is a picture of the
front and back parlors. The fixture in the back parlor is a combination the
one in the front was straight gas.



We just moved and all the phonographs are kind of piled up in one room. Once
the house gets fixed up I will take more photos.

Good eye Uncle Vanya. I'd assumed it was an electrical fixture made to look like a gas candle. Never guessed the real thing.

Skihawx, the parlors are really well done. You really created the perfect environment for displaying phonos, although I'm sure that was not your only objective. I can understand why you did not want to start explaining a gas lighting system to those inspectors. I highly doubt any of them had seen it before. I don't know of another family home with functional gas lighting installed.

Looking forward to the additional pics when you are ready.

getting back to the original subject of this thread, the vernis martin XVI on ebay...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

it doesn't seem to have sold for 8000, at least not through ebay. was anyone following this or looking into buying it?

weren't these selling for twice that amount, at least, within the past few years? I had imagined that the rare ones were still holding their value a bit better. some apparently do, at least if bidding can be assumed to be legitimate... this relatively scarce VV-X tabletop model in oak on ebay seems to be doing well enough so far...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... K:MEWAX:IT

meanwhile, anything that's priced cheap to dirt cheap is selling right and left. and I understand that. but in the long run, doesn't it make more sense from a collecting perspective to save up for say, one rare and special machine purchased every year or so (especially something like that vernis martin, that seems pretty underpriced in this case), rather than constantly drop relatively small amounts of money to fill a room with common machines and restoration projects?