Edison Phonograph to refinish or not??

[Dave D]

While many of us like to do things ourselves, there are times to realize that most of us can't be good at everything. Perhaps you could take the lid to a professional furniture touch up person. I have seen them make severe damage totally disappear. I think the case decal is not that bad for a 100 year old machine. Sure, there are better ones out there, but this is the one you have.
Dave

[gramophone-georg]

If that Standard were in my collection and if a visitor's comments centered around the flaws like "too bad the decal is half gone" or "why do you think the lid looks intentionally scratch, do you suppose someone scraped off a reproduction decal?", it would be obvious to me that the finish is a distraction. If it's a distraction, I would try to fix it. Some suggestions were made for repairing the lid. I would try them. I'd buy a Cline decal so see if the color and general appearance is similar and worthy of trying to splice part of a reproduction decal with the remains of an original. If my attempts at a repair failed, I'd refinish the whole thing. There, I said it, I'D REFINISH IT!!!

Anonymous Collector

I agree with this, but with the following caveat:

I'm a classic German car restoration specialist. The only thing worse than an "honest" patina monster is a car that's been over- restored. For example, one might see a 1957 VW single cab that's completely smooth, mirror finish, two stage color/ clear paint, etc. Absolute tosh- it never came that way. It's a commercial vehicle, not a luxury car. Always was, always will be. You could see the spot welds under the paint right from the factory, and no 1957 anything was ever clear coated.

Same thing with a phonograph. If you're going to spray epoxy on the cabinet equal to 60 coats of varnish, powder coat the horn in gloss maroon, and have all your metal bits chrome plated, my reaction is to just save the effort- unless you absolutely have to have it that way AND you're going to keep it forever- (and, even then, I can't begin to tell you how many "forever" objects wind up on Craigslist or eBay within a year!)-

Either leave it alone, OR be prepared to do the research and invest the EFFORT into doing it right... NO high gloss if it wasn't high gloss, NICKEL plate and not chrome, black lacquer japanned on the horn.

We get the same "DON'T TOUCH IT NO MATTER WHAT- IT'S ONLY ORIGINAL ONCE" crowd in the auto world, too. Yeah, it WAS original once, but now it's just falling apart.

Face it- Finishes and paints are preservatives and a necessary part of the maintenance process. If you own an old Mercedes, you're not doing it any favors leaving that thinning paint with primer or worse starting to show through. I got news for you- that's not "factory"- that's being too lazy/ cheap to maintain it.

Same with phonographs and other machines/ furniture. Sure, I've heard the Keno Bros. on Antiques Roadshow tell people how much more their stuff would be worth if they hadn't cleaned or refinished it- but that's only because they didn't do their research and they did it wrong.

To me, the proof lies in museums. If you go into the Smithsonian or any other museums, you're generally not going to find furniture or household implements that have shoddy finish or are falling apart. They've been "preserved", which is fancy talk for having been brought back to original correctly. And that, dear reader, is what it's all about- in my opinion, at least.

And that, as Forrest Gump would say, is all I have to say about that.

[De Soto Frank]

I wonder if that gouge in the decal was caused by a bracket from a horn-crane... ?

Lately I've seen some pictures on the Forum of Standards and Homes with period cranes that have a "foot" or "brace" that bears against the front of that cabinet, right about where this decal is damaged. I would assume that said cranes originally had some sort of felt or other padding to protect the cabinet against marring ?


If this theory is correct, perhaps find the appropriate crane, and display the machine that way, with the crane hiding the decal damage ?

[phonogfp]

I wonder if that gouge in the decal was caused by a bracket from a horn-crane... ?

Lately I've seen some pictures on the Forum of Standards and Homes with period cranes that have a "foot" or "brace" that bears against the front of that cabinet, right about where this decal is damaged. I would assume that said cranes originally had some sort of felt or other padding to protect the cabinet against marring ?

Yes, original horn cranes that used brackets (such as Hawthorne & Sheble and the Tea Tray Company) had brownish felt along the surfaces that would contact the wooden cabinet.

George P.