The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

leave it alone ! It's only original once ......

If you want it to look really good then leave it alone and don't polish - that's my personal opinion.

If you do decide to polish it - then please post a warning before you show the 'after' photo's for the benefit of those of us who prefer it as it is and have a delicate disposition

As a collectible, polishing is not recommended, as long as it is cleaned, I think the sense of history should be preserved

Polish it, but don't coat it with anything. Within a few years, the brass will turn a beautiful golden color. It will look like the wood and the brass aged perfectly together.

Metal and wood age by different processes. Very often, we can simply clean a wooden case to remove decades of wax, grease and dirt and itt will look like new again. No one would fault you for this. Metals, however, cannot be cleaned the same way because the processes that age them are different. If you clean the case and don't clean the horn, they don't look like they go together. It would be like a vintage automobile with all of the plated parts polished bright and shiny and the body left with little or no paint.

Here's my Brass horned Dulcephone - The horn hasn't been polished and has a beautiful patina which would disappear if it was polished into something bright, shiny and new-looking. (The flash makes it look shinier than it is ...)

Brass Horn - To Polish or Not?

Well, that was an easy question...

And the answer is:

"Polish it or Not"...

Gramtastic wrote:leave it alone ! It's only original once ......

Actually, polishing or cleaning something and removing 100 years of dirt, doesn't remove its "originality"... Changing out a motor and drilling new holes does...

I wash my car regularly, because that is routine care, but if I left it alone for 100 years and preserved it that way, it's neglect... Same with your house, leave it alone for 100 years and it will disintegrate...

Just my opinion...

I'd guess this Zonophone spent time in a place that was unfriendly to the metal parts. The tone arm looks nothing like a nickel plated tone arm. And the horn begs for a polish. I see no difference between the two. A polished but unsealed brass horn will take on a subtle appearance in a fairly short time.

My goal as a collector is to find nice original unrestored examples for my collection. But the "it's only original once" argument can be too inflexible. It can be taken to absurdity such as "do you dust your machines?" I clean and polish the cabinets and bright parts of most of the machines I purchase and that includes brass horns that have a fuzzy almost dead appearance such as the horn in this thread. If that makes my machines unoriginal, I can live with that.

The machine below is the same Victor O. I started a thread asking Forum members what they thought I should do with the machine. I included information that came with the machine that said it had been through a fire. There was complete agreement that the horn should be repainted. Some thought I should stop there or stop after the cabinet was cleaned. I assume that was to preserve its history. Granted, I had the advantage holding the machine in my hands. I could see flaws that were difficult to see in photos. For example, access to the motor was gained by removing four screws in the underside of the base. This allowed the top board with all four sides to be lifted away along with the motor. Sometime in its history, someone had physically forced the top board off and reattached with finish nails. There was also extra holes in the tone arm. The ID tag had no background paint. I don't believe the machine was physically in the fire but smoke can also do lasting damage. So I admit to seeing damage that was not obvious in photos. This little Victor O had some really rough history. I saw it as an opportunity to give it some good history, and I did. We need to remember that history does not stop but continues.

Respectfully, Jerry Blais

Gramtastic wrote:leave it alone ! It's only original once ......

Dirt and corrosion ain't original.

Thank you everyone for the replies... generally, I always clean and polish the case/cabinet and all the hardware, as well as rebuild the reproducer and rebuild and/or clean/lubricate the motor, for any machine I acquire... but this is my first all brass horn. I have brass bell horns, and the brass on those has been polished when they were rolled to remove dents and dings (Duffy has done this for me a few times). But again, I just can't decide regarding this horn... I'm inclined to just give it a gentle cleaning rather than a full polish... is this possible? If so, what would you recommend?

Again, thank you for all of these input... and that Victor O came out great by the way.