The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Great score, Sean! Thanks for sharing your goodies, as always!

Nice work, Sean! Tomorrow (1/17/12) that second receipt will be exactly 100 years old---pretty neat!

Wanamaker's is gone, but Victor/Victrola lives on!

Henry wrote:Nice work, Sean! Tomorrow (1/17/12) that second receipt will be exactly 100 years old---pretty neat!

Wanamaker's is gone, but Victor/Victrola lives on!

And Henry, as I take a break from a little cabinet cleaning, she's going to look much better after a once-over tonight! This is truly a labor of love for me and it's so rewarding, it's cleaning up like I never imagined! Stay tuned....

Sean

as promised, I did the whole outside this evening and this thing is filthy. The "red" tinge that shows in the original photos was more brown (cigarette smoke, I suspect) and it's coming clean and back to where things should be, but slowly. I only do the GoJo treatment once a day since the finish gets tacky if you overdo it, but with just one pass, what a difference!

*Edit* And again, the flash changes the way it really looks! Sigh.

Sean

Looks great, Sean! Do you use the (non-abrasive form) GoJo with paper towel wipe? I really need to give my XI a once over.

I make out 148 E. 86 St. on the first receipt---not a bad address.

Yup, the non-abrasive stuff. It's getting scarce in these parts! And yes, it was a nice neighborhood then, sadly, the original building is gone (thank you, google maps!)

Sean

it was nice talking to you outside the hall..good luck with the machine

Sean,
I was going to ask you about the red tinge on it. My first thought was that the exterior might have been refinished with a red stain. That's great that it was just ages of dirt! Definitely keep the pics coming as you go along. You have a great project and thanks for sharing it.
Steve

The beautiful grain is really coming through!

Clay

edisonsclone wrote:it was nice talking to you outside the hall..good luck with the machine

Thanks! You as well! And to those who think this hobby is dying, the guy I quoted above is a much younger collector than I am (at 38) whom I met at the auction.

And Steve, I wouldn't be surprised if this thing was smeared with something like Old English or something at some point, but it is coming back to the more grey-ish grain. As I noted before, this is a tough one to get decent pictures of!

Sean