The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Let's just be honest here:

Value of this machine...it ain't!
Intelligence of Seller...he ain't!

End of story.

Ah, the quaint business sensibility of the locals in my hometown! I'm very familiar with the various forms of antique dealers/resellers here, and I'm pretty sure this ad was posted by one of them. They might be the same all over, but there certainly isn't a place of more ignorance or greed than the dealers of the Inland Empire. They're also the most competitive people imaginable. Luckily, there are plenty of great people here--but the dealers and "resellers" are truly some of the worst, I'm convinced, and they've really gotten that way in about the last ten years. I've seen the antique shops here spiral downwards to the point where almost everything is horrible, hideous, chinese junk, and yet obscenely overpriced. There's very few places to shop anymore. It's all junk shops and mall booths run by people like the person who wrote this craigslist ad. I used to keep a file of photos of the ridiculous things I would see while antiquing here, including crazy long signs, explanations, rantings, wrong info, huge prices. It was fun for a while, but I started seeing so many things I got sick of photographing them. It was depressing.

Now, on the bright side, I don't think this will sell for $50,000 Then again, anything can happen in Southern California...

Who knows... maybe the Sinaloa Cartel would like to display it in their hacienda...