The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I took the bracket off (I can't make out what it's made of, definitely not cast iron, it's too thin, but it doesn't look like any pot metal I' ve seen either, there's no crumbling at all. Iron? The part that goes down the horn is brass, but not the rest) - it's not damaged - everything seems to be there although the top nut looks a little rough compared to the rest of the design, but it's the right colour. Anyway I cleaned it all with alcohol and then after greasing and a bit of fine adjusting it's like new and moves
like an Expert tone arm or the like.

Once I had the tone arm off I couldn't resist taking the horn out. The back came off with a few knocks. From the looks of it there's been damage and the slats are long gone. I have no idea why, maybe they broke? Were they moveable? But it has doors so that's improbable.
I know nothing about how these are fastened in the horn and suppose finding new (old) ones is a major task.
If I were to go by what I found under the horn, my guess is this was done in the 1940 - 50 period. There was an empty box for a crystal Electric pickup, maybe the machine was used with one for a time?

It looks to me that the tone arm five ball bearings are too small. They should sit snugly in the spaces around the ring. I believe Walt Sommers (cyber-tigger on Ebay) has the correct size, or maybe someone on the board has the measurements.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Victor-Victrol ... SwrklU6zBr

The rest of the tone arm components look correct and complete to me!
Bob

The back bracket is a steel stamping. The neck that extends into the horn is also steel, but it's been copper plated. The horn louvers would fit into grooves on the two side walls of the horn. Apparently, in the past, someone puttied over the grooves. Shouldn't be too difficult to find a proper horn bell, just double check all dimensions as Victor used a lot of different sizes! Not sure about your photo of the speaker grill. Victors don't use them, so it's a later add-on that is not appropriate.

I agree with the above comment about the bearings looking too small. Just be sure the arm is rolling on the bearings and not dragging on the bearing spacer plate instead.

Unless you can find a matching original wood horn with the slats in place, I would leave it alone... it looks fine as it is... If someone has an original, then it would be worth swapping it out.

The chances of finding a fitting horn here in Europe are slim to put it mildly. I've never even seen one of these Victrolas before. It's ok, maybe a Challenge for a future owner... I'm happy the bracket wasn't busted. One thing I wonder is what were they for, those slats? Any acoustic function?

As for the ballbearings, it's true they're small but the arm moves very freely on them so that's ok.