The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Oh how I wish I had more of a provenance for my machines. It would add so much interest for the future of the hobby. All I have is scant information about the previous owners location which I documented and stored in the machines. Your 16 is a treasure not just because of rarity, but history which is impressive. The condition is fantastic. Congratulations.

Your XVI and the story of its provenance is great! Back in the 1960s-1970s I seldom asked sellers about where a phonograph came from - and I came to regret that oversight. Once those stories are lost, the thread is snapped and cannot be reattached. My favorite component of your Victrola's provenance is the newspaper photo of it being carried down the stairs. Just fantastic.

This all reminds me of a Victrola XVI I bought in October 1967. I wasn't foresighted enough to ask, but the antique dealer remarked that it had come from a mansion that stood a few hundred yards from the shop. "Herbert and Martha Wadsworth; you should look them up - they were interesting people." Indeed they were. I wrote an article on the machine and the family, and it appeared in the March 2018 issue of the APS magazine. Here's a picture of Martha astride one of her favorite horses on the lawn of the mansion ("Ashantee" as in "a shanty").
Here's the Victrola XVI that she and her husband Herbert enjoyed:
A number of articles on original owners have appeared over the years in the pages of the APS magazine. Nate Ostre contributed one on the Type Q Graphophone that was purchased by a proud teenager in 1897-98, and who in his eighties fought off a burglar in his store! And in the September 2017 issue, there's an article on how the original owners of a Type GG Graphophone Grand were traced through the survival of a home recording that remained miraculously unseparated from the machine.

Congratulations on your acquisition!

George P.

My recent find of a Pathé rooster with a paper label attached that had a name and address in Greenwich Village, NY, led me to discover the person who originally manufactured them. For years it has been a piece of lost information regarding the origins of the rooster store displays. Any documentation or seemingly unimportant info can lead to interesting discoveries.

Thanks for posting this...

Very interesting, thanks for sharing! My house is on the same street in Memphis, just three blocks down from the demolished home, and was built in 1926. I have often wondered which phonograph the original owners of my home had!