The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

phonogfp wrote:Very nice! And they never installed the auto brake? Curious...!

In all the years I've collected, I've never owned an L-door. I've come close many times (there's a mahogany one for $275 about an hour from here!), but never succumbed. If I found a good oak one for a good price, I'd be a goner.

Congratulations!

George P.

Tsk tsk tsk! For shame!

And the receipts are a real nice bonus from exactly 100 years ago, December 1911 and January 1912 are what they appear to say.

It has beautifull quartersawn oak veneer. And behind the dirt and grime it all seems to be there. It may need quite a bit of elbow grease to get it up to scratch, but it is a beautiful machine.

Congratulations indeed!

Clay

Nice score Sean. Congratulations!
I've never been a fan of that particular cabinet style & thought they were quite ugly, but then I've never seen one in oak either. Surprizingly, I actually think your oak machine looks very nice indeed, so it just goes to show what a difference the timber used & finish applied can make to the over-all appearance of a machine I guess.
I dont know how they managed to sell an mahogany machines when this oak version was available too.
It's definately a keeper

Yes, it's a keeper! I'm afraid to admit that I now have 6 VTLA / XVIs, all of which are different from each other, this one just caught my eye. I did just the top of the lid with GoJo last night just to see how dirty it was and, well, this machine is FILTHY on the outside. I'll post more pics as I get to it. It's interesting looking in the Victor Data Book that this machine is listed as using the later friction brake, but this one has the bullet brake and record albums rather than boxes, so this must have been a transition between the last two styles of the L-door. Luckily I kept enough of the albums this used and I should be able to put together a set for this. I like 'em as complete as they can be! Tonight's task will be to fish out thousands of needles and paper from the back, who knows what's hiding back there, I only looked quckly.

Sean

Sean,

Wondering if this might be the "driftwood" oak finish, looking at the inside of the lid, or is it just lighter looking in the picture than it really is?

Clay

Clay,

The photos make it look much lighter than it is, it's very dark even under the lid, almost black, but not dark enough to be Flemish, as I noted. You could be right, though, I guess once I've done a decent cleaning and can get some better photos in natural light, it will be easier to tell. Between this and the XVIII, I have lots of cleaning ahead of me!

Sean

Sean:

I'm guessing that it's a C model XVI. If so most of the one's I've come across have had bullet brakes (including mine). I know the data book shows a friction brake but the C had a fairly long run so there's probably a good mix of both. Usually the bullet brake is on machines with numbers up to 35,000's.

Yeah, this is 41xxx, pretty late in the run or so I had thought? My Mahogany type C also has the bullet brake and it has a 38xxx something number, but it came with record boxes rather than albums. I find the subtle differences interesting, especially with relatively close serial numbers.

Sean