American Restoration "does" an Edison C-19

[melvind]

I kind of liked the show until I saw that last night. Restoring a machine worth a few hundred dollars for the price of many premium phonographs is a joke and the guy got ripped off. And, the restoration was horrific. They polished all the finish off the reproducer for God sake. And, when they showed the phonograph playing they had canned fake music playing. Really tacky I thought.

[52089]

I kind of liked the show until I saw that last night. Restoring a machine worth a few hundred dollars for the price of many premium phonographs is a joke and the guy got ripped off. And, the restoration was horrific. They polished all the finish off the reproducer for God sake. And, when they showed the phonograph playing they had canned fake music playing. Really tacky I thought.

Just FYI, the fake canned music is there for copyright reasons. They want to make sure they don't have to pay royalties. Pawn Stars did the same thing when they showed one of those toy VW buses that play records by driving on them.

[Zeppy]

I kind of liked the show until I saw that last night. Restoring a machine worth a few hundred dollars for the price of many premium phonographs is a joke and the guy got ripped off. And, the restoration was horrific. They polished all the finish off the reproducer for God sake. And, when they showed the phonograph playing they had canned fake music playing. Really tacky I thought.

Just FYI, the fake canned music is there for copyright reasons. They want to make sure they don't have to pay royalties. Pawn Stars did the same thing when they showed one of those toy VW buses that play records by driving on them.

There actually shouldn't be a problme with copyright for the vast majority of diamond disks. Diamond disks were produced form 1912-29. All records first published before 1923 are in the public domain. Those published after 1923 go into the public domain starting in 2018. If they really tried, I'm pretty sure they could have dug up a DD in the public domain without much trouble.


Just lazy...or worse...they didn't know how to restore the reproducer, and it sounded like utter garbage.

[Microtrol]

I doubt that the guy paid anything for the restoration as the show is the same as the very Fake Pawn Stars. Most of the customers are paid actors and the items come from Dale's own yard. Too bad for the C-19 anyway.

[52089]

I kind of liked the show until I saw that last night. Restoring a machine worth a few hundred dollars for the price of many premium phonographs is a joke and the guy got ripped off. And, the restoration was horrific. They polished all the finish off the reproducer for God sake. And, when they showed the phonograph playing they had canned fake music playing. Really tacky I thought.

Just FYI, the fake canned music is there for copyright reasons. They want to make sure they don't have to pay royalties. Pawn Stars did the same thing when they showed one of those toy VW buses that play records by driving on them.

There actually shouldn't be a problme with copyright for the vast majority of diamond disks. Diamond disks were produced form 1912-29. All records first published before 1923 are in the public domain. Those published after 1923 go into the public domain starting in 2018. If they really tried, I'm pretty sure they could have dug up a DD in the public domain without much trouble.


Just lazy...or worse...they didn't know how to restore the reproducer, and it sounded like utter garbage.

First, I'm sure they didn't want to take the chance on having to deal with something that might still have a valid copyright. Better safe than sorry.

Second, when you say "All records first published before 1923 are in the public domain", that is not accurate. All compositions before 1923 are public domain, but very few recordings are. Sound recording laws (in the US) are different than those for other media. Technically, US copyright law didn't start to cover sound recordings until 1972. Prior to that, they were covered by a network of state laws, most of which had no expiration date.

All Diamond Disc recordings became public domain when the US Gov't. obtained the Edison assets from McGraw Hill in the 50's/60's. However, the copyright of the compositions is still valid. In other words, if you create a CD copy of the DD version of Rhapsody in Blue, you don't owe anything to Edison or the US Gov't for using the recording, but you do owe money to the current publishers of Rhapsody in Blue for using their copyright composition.

There's a decent summary of this on Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_dom ... ted_States

And again, other countres have totally different laws. In most of Europe, compositions and recordings over 50 years old are public domains. That's why you can buy cheap European CD pressings of pre-1960 records, but the US versions will cost 5-10 times more.

[WDC]

In most of Europe, compositions and recordings over 50 years old are public domains. That's why you can buy cheap European CD pressings of pre-1960 records, but the US versions will cost 5-10 times more.

With the 50 years in Europe you probably mean the ancillary copyright, which is not be mixed up with copyright in general.

The ancillary copyright grants the record label an issuing monopole and the right to collect additional money from anyone who'd like to make a record. You could call it an exclusive publishing right. And there are separate collecting agencies around, just for that. These rights do expire 50 after the recording was made.

This, however does not touch the copyright for sound recordings at all. The vastly used rule for sound recordings in Europe is a copyright that expires 70 years after the death of the composer/performer. And this can be quite a problem if some participant has lived a long life.

So, even most of the pre-1960 material requires at least license payment to one agency. Around here in Germany, that fee is approx. 13% of the retail price.

[52089]

In most of Europe, compositions and recordings over 50 years old are public domains. That's why you can buy cheap European CD pressings of pre-1960 records, but the US versions will cost 5-10 times more.

With the 50 years in Europe you probably mean the ancillary copyright, which is not be mixed up with copyright in general.

The ancillary copyright grants the record label an issuing monopole and the right to collect additional money from anyone who'd like to make a record. You could call it an exclusive publishing right. And there are separate collecting agencies around, just for that. These rights do expire 50 after the recording was made.

This, however does not touch the copyright for sound recordings at all. The vastly used rule for sound recordings in Europe is a copyright that expires 70 years after the death of the composer/performer. And this can be quite a problem if some participant has lived a long life.

So, even most of the pre-1960 material requires at least license payment to one agency. Around here in Germany, that fee is approx. 13% of the retail price.

Thanks for the clarification, Norman. I'm very familiar with US Copyright law, but only superficially familiar with laws outside the US. Interestingly, when I google "ancillary copyright", the vast majority of sites that come up only discuss German copyright law. I had hoped that the EU would have standardized this by now, but I guess not. Definitely worth more research!

[Valecnik]

I sold a very nice C250 in oak at Union for $300. I had it priced at $400 Friday and Saturday and sold it on Sunday morning. In my opinion a C250 is worth a little more than a C19 and oak is more unusual than mahogany. Jerry Blais

A C19 in Mahogany, very nice unrestored condition is a $300 machine imho. I saw Jerry's very nice C250 in oak. It should have been worth more but you also need a buyer. Additional validation that a $4500 price tag on a restoration is outrageous.

[Guest]

So, nobody saw the episode of "Pawn Stars" where Rick "restored" a Seeburg Trashcan jukebox for "Fat" Rick from Gold and Silver?

When they showed the jukebox playing, it was a 78 that was obviously playing at 45. And, yup, they cut away to "Fat" Rick and his fat son, and they're just ignorantly tapping their toes and smiling. All while listening to a record playing at the wrong speed. (Of course, we at home got the corny canned music.) I wonder if anyone paid good money for that jukebox.

I also think that neither Rick Dale nor his crew has no idea what they're doing when it comes to complicated mechanical items. If it wasn't a motorcycle, car, or two sticks you rub together to make fire... don't take it to them for restoration!


Slightly off-topic, both of those shows are pure and utter shite.

[Guest]

$4500????? I'm not an Edison kind of person, but $4500 is an obscene price for a C-19 in original pristine condition, if I'm not mistaken. But to pay that much for lousey restoration?

I saw him do similar work on a relatively cheap external horn machine (may have been a Standard). He did a really nice job with the horn, I'll give him credit for that, but the case itself, it was pretty much a hack job. And then there was the price. I vaguely recall it being in the neighborhood of $1k. All I could think was that the machine wasn't worth that much to begin with, and he's just fleecing the poor guy. But the coustomer at some level has a responsbility to know what he's getting into.

I'll give him some credit, some of the work he does turns out beautiful...amazingly so (there is an online episode where he restores a 1913 meat slicer, and the final product is stunning). However, I think to call what he does, "restoration" is not accurate. When your first impulse is to strip everything down to bare metal/wood, what you are doing is not restoration. Even more so, when you have no interest in putting back a historically accurate finish, once you have stripped everything.

He re-creates vanity pieces to feed a person's sense of nostolgia, and look pretty in their man-cave. When no consideration at all is given to historic accuracy, then I would hardly consider it restoration. He's better than the middle aged house wives who slap on green and white paint, and call it "antiqued" or "shabby-chic" but only by a matter degree.

Two Points:
They have some techniques they are very good at, however as every collector knows one takes specialised pieces to a specialist. American restorations seem to be experts on everything, space helmets, combustion engines, refridgeration, juke boxes, vending machines........etc

If I need a heart operation, I'm not going to be filled with much confidence if a Gynaecologist will be performing the operation!

Secondly

"A lot of people who bring pieces into that shop have some kind of emotional attachment- sometimes if it's a family piece money is no object. "

If its a family heirloom, whats the point of removing all the family DNA / wear and tear that comes with time, from the object. I would not.