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This is an interesting question but I've discovered the "Holy Grail" of machines is a moving target. As a new collector a maroon Gem was my first great machine. I thought that I've arrived. My next fabulous must have was a Victor VI. I drove to Ira Dueltgen's in a snow storm to collect my first VI. If visit now you'll see several VI's but all have different horns which are interesting. Currently, I'd love to find a fancy case Victor D in mahogany and I'd settle for a similar MS in mahogany. The "Holy Grail" for most of us is a moving target.

Jerry B.

Jerry B. wrote: Tue Sep 05, 2023 9:25 am This is an interesting question but I've discovered the "Holy Grail" of machines is a moving target. As a new collector a maroon Gem was my first great machine. I thought that I've arrived. My next fabulous must have was a Victor VI. I drove to Ira Dueltgen's in a snow storm to collect my first VI. If visit now you'll see several VI's but all have different horns which are interesting. Currently, I'd love to find a fancy case Victor D in mahogany and I'd settle for a similar MS in mahogany. The "Holy Grail" for most of us is a moving target.

Jerry B.

Once you've climbed the first rung of the ladder, where else to go but onward and upward?

I suppose to qualify as a "holy grail," the machine needs to combine rarity and intensity of desire. For me, the "holy grail" of machines was an open horn Pathé disk player with a strong motor. As I've recounted elsewhere, I finally latched onto one, a Concert Model 20, a couple of years back: Yes, I have other machines that had the "intensity of desire" factor. Maybe the most intense was a general wish to have *any* upright type spring machine back when I was just starting out, and the result was--a Pathé, specifically a model 100. Others would include the 2/4 Edison Triumph B with trowel-weight model O reproducer and oak cygnet horn for cylinders or a "laboratory model" type diamond disc player with LP gearing (in my case, it's a C-250), but all these machines are fairly common--they lack the rarity of a "holy grail." And, yes, there are other machines that I'd like to have--a nice Victor VI in place of my current imperfect Victor V, one of the fancy case diamond disc machines or even a Jacobean, an Amberola III, etc.--but none have that "intensity of desire" factor as did the Pathé, especially now that I'm coming more into a consolidation than an acquisition mindset. I'm glad to say that the Pathé wasn't just a passing infatuation; I've had more enjoyment playing that machine than I've done with any acoustic player in years. Granted, it helps that I finally worked out a way to store my Pathé discs such that they are organized and accessible adjacent to the player!

Jerry B is right. The "Holy Grail" of machines is indeed a moving target.

First it was an EMG or Expert Hand Made Gramophone. Done that.
Then it was an Edison Opera. Done that.
Then it was to complete the UK catalogued colour range of HMV102's. Done that, plus the Indian Teak version, the French "La Voix de Son Maitre" version, the Columbia 9000 (a 102 in disguise) and the Russian copy.

A Seymour Superphone or an EMG Mk.VII would be great finds, but are most unlikely to come my way. More achievable "Holy Grails" might be the few remaining HMV102's that I don't have. The German Electrola, the Italian "La Voce del Padrone", the Spanish "La Voz de Su Amo" and the colours never catalogued, Pink and Pale Green.

After over 60 years collecting I enjoy what I already have, but I never stop looking.

Still looking for an Emerson enclosed horn table model----found one BUT NOT an Emerson Phono/Record Co. model with Music Master Horn. It was made by The Emerson Manufacturing Co. -----Close but no cigar, still on the hunt to hopefully complete the phonographs, while still looking for additional Emerson related items. Just gets scarier as the years pass by ---So Fast.

Many awesome dream machines listed here that I would be ecstatic to own. But my holy grail would be an Auxetophone, but I would of course also take a British Auxeto-Gramophone, or any of the European versions of it. I am quite sure that this will probably stay in holy grail status for me. But I can always dream can't I?

Andreas

Hi,

I think there is only one phonograph that was intended to have a "bubble-level" in its base. Would I be far off if I said that?

Allen

I’ve got simple tastes so for me it’s my mahogany Edison Opera, which I got a few years back. As far as machines I don’t have for me it would be a Columbia coin-op. They are so cool!

drh wrote: Tue Sep 05, 2023 12:30 pm I suppose to qualify as a "holy grail," the machine needs to combine rarity and intensity of desire. For me, the "holy grail" of machines was an open horn Pathé disk player with a strong motor. As I've recounted elsewhere, I finally latched onto one, a Concert Model 20, a couple of years back:Pathé Concert 20 212x500.JPG

Yes, I have other machines that had the "intensity of desire" factor. Maybe the most intense was a general wish to have *any* upright type spring machine back when I was just starting out, and the result was--a Pathé, specifically a model 100. Others would include the 2/4 Edison Triumph B with trowel-weight model O reproducer and oak cygnet horn for cylinders or a "laboratory model" type diamond disc player with LP gearing (in my case, it's a C-250), but all these machines are fairly common--they lack the rarity of a "holy grail." And, yes, there are other machines that I'd like to have--a nice Victor VI in place of my current imperfect Victor V, one of the fancy case diamond disc machines or even a Jacobean, an Amberola III, etc.--but none have that "intensity of desire" factor as did the Pathé, especially now that I'm coming more into a consolidation than an acquisition mindset. I'm glad to say that the Pathé wasn't just a passing infatuation; I've had more enjoyment playing that machine than I've done with any acoustic player in years. Granted, it helps that I finally worked out a way to store my Pathé discs such that they are organized and accessible adjacent to the player!

That Pathé looks spectacular.

Garret wrote: Sun Sep 10, 2023 1:40 am That Pathé looks spectacular.

Thank you! It sounds wonderful, too, and my grandmother's sewing table could have been made to be a stand for it. I count myself as very lucky to have latched onto it.

I'm not sure how the machine came to be in the United States; as far as I know, Pathé never sold open horn machines here, and this one has an unusual, non-Pathé horn to boot. My first machine, the Pathé 100, is more typical of what Pathé sold in this country: what Frow calls a "half cabinet upright" with very plain, straight lines. As far as I can see, nearly all the "conventional" Pathé models for US buyers were just slightly larger or smaller takes on that same template. Even the Actuelle machines, at least the ones that turn up most often, usually follow the same outline, albeit with different proportions to accommodate the more exotic playback mechanism.

I expect the newcomer open horn machine would be saleable, if I (unlikely) or my heirs (probably) should see fit to dispose of it, but I have the impression the standard Pathé uprights like my first machine have essentially no market here. That said, when I got the upright, back in the early-mid 1970s, I was so desperate for a "Victrola" (hey, I was a kid in the pre-Internet days and didn't know any better), humble as it is, that Pathé gave me what was then my "holy grail." And oh, did I play and play it--if being painfully honest, I'd admit that I got more pleasure out of that thing than I have out of most of my far more "desirable" and expensive machines that followed. Coming as it did with a cabinet's worth of admittedly rather undistinguished Pathé discs, it also set my feet, right at the outset, on the primrose path toward collecting vertical cut records--but that's a different story. I'm glad to say that the "new" open horn Pathé is letting me relive some of that fun, which I guess points to another characteristic of "holy grail": once at last obtained, it brings pleasure proportional to the desire.