The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

By closer inspection of the back bracket it looks like it was painted black on top of a nickel plated surface. I also remove a little bit of black paint in two areas and what I saw was nickel not bare metal. I don't know why they did this, maybe because the nickel was in bad shape. I guess I'm going to re-nickel the back bracket. About the crack, I don't know, when you look at the crack connecting shaft you see that is not threaded and it looks like an all original hmv 3 spring motor to me including the crack connecting shaft. I don't see any strange holes on the cabinet that shows that the crank escutcheon was moved or repaced. The machine on the other thread the crank looks alot thin than mine and the escutcheon hole is alot smaller as well. Please let me know your opinions on this matter and thanks again for all the comments and info.

dennislpr wrote:By closer inspection of the back bracket it looks like it was painted black on top of a nickel plated surface. I also remove a little bit of black paint in two areas and what I saw was nickel not bare metal. I don't know why they did this, maybe because the nickel was in bad shape. I guess I'm going to re-nickel the back bracket. About the crack, I don't know, when you look at the crack connecting shaft you see that is not threaded and it looks like an all original hmv 3 spring motor to me including the crack connecting shaft. I don't see any strange holes on the cabinet that shows that the crank escutcheon was moved or repaced. The machine on the other thread the crank looks alot thin than mine and the escutcheon hole is alot smaller as well. Please let me know your opinions on this matter and thanks again for all the comments and info.

Dennis, As a longtime collector...I don't think I would get too hung up on what's wrong or right with the machine. Based on your initial post, this was a very good buy all around.
It is very possible a previous owner painted the bracket black due to poor original nickel finish. If the tone arm is any indication to how worn the over all nickel is......that would explain a lot.

I would try and strip the black paint off and see what you have "first". Then, decide if you want to leave "as original" or re-plate.
Some collectors will chose to leave as is after removing the paint.

I would still look for a patent stamping on the small end of the horn....as already mentioned.

dennislpr wrote:I guess I'm going to re-nickel the back bracket. About the crack, I don't know, when you look at the crack connecting shaft you see that is not threaded

I also would re-nickle the (visually dominant) back bracket.

The slotted crank is a, perhaps recent, reproduction which replaced the original threaded crank. The threaded winding shaft was exchanged also and got a pin to fit the slotted crank. This was rather professionally done and seems to work fine. My advice is to leave it as it is.

I just found this machine on this website http://www.gramophones.uk.com/informati ... chine.html look at the picture. I don't know if I'm going to re-nickel everything, but for now I'm going to remove the black paint from the back bracket to see how the nickel underneath look.

If I had this machine I would definitely not touch the horn or tone arm.
If the black paint was applied later to the back bracket, I would try and remove it to the plating underneath.
I prefer machines as original as possible.

regards
Stephen