The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Inigo wrote: Fri Oct 28, 2022 3:15 pm Thanks.
My 194 must be pretty early. It is a Spanish model from Barcelona factory. In the motor board edge and inside the cabinet it has engraved what seems an assembly number, and it happen to be only no. 2. So it must be of 1927. 5A reproducer, single lid stay and no34 motor, no U tube in the horn. It sounds pretty good. No ivorine plate nor serial number except for that '2'. In the cabinet it is engraved on a metal plate attached to the left side of the horn compartment, under the motor board.
Dunno what part of the processes were done at Barcelona, if they imported complete machines from UK and only added the Spanish decals, or they were imported ready to use, or in the contrary they assembled all them locally. Who knows...

I think the cabinets were assembled locally, because several years ago a Spanish catalogue was posted here showing Walnut and Mahogany as the options on the largest Re-Entrants. Walnut was never catalogued as an option in the UK.
Like so many other interesting images they will have disappeared and may never be recoverable.

There's a place which gives links to other libraries etc, and thus lists many records and machines catalogues, directly hosted or by means of these links, which can be seen in jpg form page by page, or be downloaded complete in pdf format. I find it most useful and interesting. It is the site of the Spanish Asociación de Documentación Musical, AEDOM, through its section named Matriz. Here's the link:
https://www.aedom.org/catalogosdiscograficos
It can be sorted by several fields, etc.
Maybe there, I remember, is the Spanish gramophones catalogue of machines, of which I was given a photocopy many years ago, and I can check there what you said about which finishes were available then for the big re-entrants.
I'll add this to the links section too.

I don't believe the identical cabinets were made locally because apart from the decals they are.....well, identical in every detail which seems unlikely a cabinet maker in a different country could have produced back then.

I believe they were all imported from the French Gramophone division (sourced from UK) which was responsible for the Spanish market.

Where there are deviations from the standard oak or mahogany models, it is possible they were made especially on the continent as these cabinet designs varied from the standard pattern in a number of ways.

The Spanish market had always had a variety of exotic styles and woods at its disposal from way back in the early 1900s. You only have to look at the catalogues and range of models from 1905 onwards. These were unique to the Spanish market.

Since 1915, the Spanish branch operated independently from the French. T they were renamed from Compañía Francesa Del Gramophone to Compañía del Gramófono S.A.E, entirely with Spanish capital. So at the time of these machines, the cabinets could have been imported from the UK or made locally. It's unlikely that they were imported from France, as no other Gramófono items appear to be of French HMV branch origin. It seems that the connections with French Gramophone were completely cut, for in many things out Spanish branch seemed to follow the Hayes rules, even the pairings of many records imported from the USA that were different from their Victor counterparts. Rare pairings are found the same in UK and Spain, but the French versions send to be paired differently.
This said, I could be totally wrong!

Hi HMV Lovers,

Here is the video of my HMV 202 Gramophone playing Casals Bach Cello Suites. I am planning to compare the sounds of my HMV 202 and two-door Credenza with the same condition, and their original parts.

Hideki