The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Just to add to the list:
VV XI 1916 Serial number: 281426G
Exhibition: Triangular hole Serial number: 505924N

One more

L Door serial number 29174 shipped with exhibition number 427231

Here's one:

XIV-E in mahogany, built 1914, Serial # 52021 E, was equipped with triangle hole, nickeled Exhibition # 696169 A.


What good all that data is, I dunno. I think the reproducer is original, because it was just as trashed as the rest of the Victrola. Rebuilt with a kit from Golden State Phonographs, it can play a 12" Red Seal with no black dust as long as I use Chamberlain steels, started on the inside grooves.

Stones wrote:Just to add to the list:
VV XI 1916 Serial number: 281426G
Exhibition: Triangular hole Serial number: 505924N

Here's another:
VV-XI 1917 Serial number: 370333G
Exhibition: Triangular hole Serial number: 859294N

I have a Victor III talking machine, serial #11225 with the round-hole Exhibition box numbered 119201.

Somehow I think the phonograph is a 1907 but some of the other numbers make me wonder if it's a little earlier. I get these things wrong sometimes.

Having just discovered this topic, I can add my ha'porth concerning the London Exhibitions. Firstly, their serial numbers do not seem to be in the same series as the Victor ones, although they came from the same factory. The lowest number on my list for a G & T box is 2125 (log throat). 2959 is my lowest for a rubber-backed Exhibition, and my highest is 601193.
After about 1918, the Gramophone Co made Exhibitions in their own factory (marked 'His Master's Voice" and Made in England), and these have no serial numbers.

There are also a few USA-made boxes, possibly the last ones to be imported, which have Nipper in the 12 o'clock position and "His Master's Voice" in very small font, and these have very low serial numbers (e.g. 670), which was clearly a new series.

I don't know whether the serial numbers were applied at Camden or in London. If the former, then it is likely that soundboxes in other European markets were numbered in the same series. Given that there was considerable movement of goods between the European offices, the numbers may all have been in the same series even if applied on this side of the Atlantic. Scope for more research ....

My Vic-III is serial number 31686 so based on data from the "Victor Data Book" it was probably manufactured in 1913. The serial number of the Exhibition reproducer is 633597N and as far as I know it is original. I also have an Exhibition on my little VV-IV but am pretty certain it is NOT the original and it's probably older than the machine as the serial number of the machine places it as being manufactured in 1915 but the round-hole reproducer serial number is 29569.

My "Early" Vic III serial # 883 has Exhibition serial 105829. I have no way of knowing if it is the original reproducer, but assume so since it has a round needle hole, knurled tone arm locking nuts, and thumb-screw needle lock (not lever).