The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Jerry, is your next project what will someday be my newest machine?

Beautiful!! Great job on the horn!! Another nice machine restored back to like-original condition.

Very Nice!

Brad Abell

Very nice. The end result is great!

As one proud Victor 0 owner to another, you have done a wonderful job of bringing this player back to life and making it look BETTER than new (in my humble opinion!)

Nipper approves... it's a great restoration...

I still think it should have been a Victor O Ducks machine.

But seriously- not nitpicking- just curious about this: On my monitor, the horn highlights look brown. All the Os I have seen have red highlights. Is it my monitor- or were there horn color variants?

I took an original Victor O horn to the painter as an example. He asked if I wanted it "orange" like the original. I know colors or maybe some color pigments in the paint change with exposure to UV light. Because of that I suspect the color in my original horn did not start as orange but changed towards orange over time. With that in mind I asked that he trim it with a burgundy which would tie the horn with the mahogany stain on the cabinet. That was my logic.

I have another Victor O in my collection. When purchased I noticed that it didn't appear to have a trace of the trim color. I looked in the pedal seams and places that were somewhat protected from UV light or frequent polishing. I could find nothing until later when I removed the elbow and under the elbow was a rich dark burgandy color. That probably strongly influenced my request for the color of trim on my restored Victor O.

Thanks for the good question.

Jerry

Jerry B. wrote:I took an original Victor O horn to the painter as an example. He asked if I wanted it "orange" like the original. I know colors or maybe some color pigments in the paint change with exposure to UV light. Because of that I suspect the color in my original horn did not start as orange but changed towards orange over time. With that in mind I asked that he trim it with a burgundy which would tie the horn with the mahogany stain on the cabinet. That was my logic.

I have another Victor O in my collection. When purchased I noticed that it didn't appear to have a trace of the trim color. I looked in the pedal seams and places that were somewhat protected from UV light or frequent polishing. I could find nothing until later when I removed the elbow and under the elbow was a rich dark burgandy color. That probably strongly influenced my request for the color of trim on my restored Victor O.

Thanks for the good question.

Jerry

Thanks for the detailed answer. Interesting!
As an auto restorer who is just old enough to remember what I deal with when it was new or nearly new, I'm well aware of how "legends" become fact in these things. The prime example was the "original" two- tone VW Beetles that were all the restorer's rage some years ago. Everyone wanted his classic Beetle redone in the "factory deluxe" two- tone. Only problem was that VW never painted these cars like this. Type 3 got a factory two- tone- but with contrasting color on the roof only.

Hence the question- and yes, I have seen Os with just yellow on the horns with no highlights. I wondered about that as well.

Always wanted an O- never got there. They are interesting little machines! You did a great job with yours.

The O looks much better now. I just didn't have the time nor skills to bring it back to life. Did you get the tone arm from Cliff? Congrats on a great job!!!!
Ken Brekke