The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

If it's not indiscreet... Johnsheff... How much will you charge for such a completely restored beauty? For sporting, I'd made an educated guess of... $7,500... Maybe I'm short...

I believe this same phonograph is now on eBay at an extremely attractive price:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1915-Victor-Vi ... SwADZfVuXE

It should sell very quickly.

Raphael

Ho, ho...! I believed it costed double!

Stunning, Jon. I'm truly grateful you share your wonderful restorations with us.

You're a true craftsman.

Cheers,
Fran

Like most collectors, I'm not normally a fan of restored machines.
But that is SMART!

We all like to find original condition machines. In my case, I don't mind a restored example, when it's done this well!

I also like original phonograph cabinets, but sometimes the cabinet is so bad it has to be restored. Very few people have a restoration done to the level of Jonsheff though. For example, I bought an Edison Opera in oak at the Stanton auction some years ago. It had already been refinished, both the cabinet and the motor board. The work was worse than amateurish. It needed a complete refinish. Uncle Vanya was nice enough to offer to do the work. He did a superb job on the cabinet, the horn, and the motor board, and the job is so nice no one ever says to me "Oh it's been refinished". It just looks perfect. Here's a look at his work on the motor board.

marcapra wrote:I also like original phonograph cabinets, but sometimes the cabinet is so bad it has to be restored. Very few people have a restoration done to the level of Jonsheff though. For example, I bought an Edison Opera in oak at the Stanton auction some years ago. It had already been refinished, both the cabinet and the motor board. The work was worse than amateurish. It needed a complete refinish. Uncle Vanya was nice enough to offer to do the work. He did a superb job on the cabinet, the horn, and the motor board, and the job is so nice no one ever says to me "Oh it's been refinished". It just looks perfect. Here's a look at his work on the motor board.

That is really nice work, did he paint the gold by hand? If so, thats a real skill i tried but couldnt master on my clock repairs. I use a process on my clocks that might work great for scroll work on these type motor boards: scan the board, fix scroll work using photo shop, delete everything except the scrollwork and save as png. Import into cricut and use a cricut printer (cuts instead of printing) to cut a stencil on adhesive backed mylar. Lay stencil on painted motor board and spray with design master gold paint. Here is an example

Here is something on the Victrola XVIII i did that might surprise some. The rear doors were missing the trim at the bottom. Finding rear doors for an 18 is nearly impossible. I contacted several mills to get them custom made but the prices were outrageous. I have woodworking skills but carving is not one of them. What i ended up doing was removed the top trim from one of the doors, used silicone mold material to make a mold of the trim. Poured fiberglass resin mixed with sanding dust from the unit and hardener into the mold. Attached, dyed and finished doors, turned out perfect. Nearly impossible to tell difference between top and bottom trim.

Jonsheff wrote:Here is something on the Victrola XVIII i did that might surprise some. The rear doors were missing the trim at the bottom. Finding rear doors for an 18 is nearly impossible. I contacted several mills to get them custom made but the prices were outrageous. I have woodworking skills but carving is not one of them. What i ended up doing was removed the top trim from one of the doors, used silicone mold material to make a mold of the trim. Poured fiberglass resin mixed with sanding dust from the unit and hardener into the mold. Attached, dyed and finished doors, turned out perfect. Nearly impossible to tell difference between top and bottom trim.

Absolutely fantastic work. I thought of doing the same with the partially missing foot on my VV-XVII, but I don't think I could match it without refinishing.

Martin