The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Chuck wrote:The real thanks for all of this goes out
to you, Fran, for tipping me off about this
machine to start with!

Total miles driven including pizza errand
and a trip to Dewitt County Museum to look
at live telephone switching equipment, and make test recording on their ICS Edison
Standard machine comes to 720 miles.

Chuck

It also looks like you got to have an enjoyable stop along your trip. Does that get a cost added on as well?

I guess my way of looking at something like this is rather simple. This to me, first and foremost is a hobby I enjoy, not a business so therefore I don't make everything about money, although I completely understand that some people just "do". A very good friend of mine who has been a record collector for more than 50 years once told me when everything you associate with something you love becomes an obession with money or profit, it is no longer a hobby, nor is it fun.

You still got a bargain, as I said in a previous post.

Food for thought, prehaps for many.

Sean

Chuck, you never mentioned the condition of the cabinet. What shape was it in? Any damage?

Wes

The cabinet has a mint finish.
It has maybe 1.5 to 2.0 percent of the veneer
chipped, and a few pieces missing. The seller
included a couple of them, so I'll glue those
back on.

All in all, if this cabinet was a kid in
school, I'd grade it maybe 90 to 95 percent
good.

It's an "A" grade for sure, just not an "A+"

The drawers and everything inside, and under the lid looks brand new. That is definitely
"A+" in there.

Ordered genuine Edison original stylus bar
today fitted with one of those much-debated
"Expert" diamonds. Also ordered a gasket set.

The original bar will assure the proper fit
of the original .027 inch diameter stylus bar
pin. That was easy to get out by twisting
and pulling with a smooth pliers.

Also made a key that fits the retaining ring
on the reproducer and got the ring loosened and off, then blew out the diaphragm into my
hand, then took a small pocketknife blade and
scraped off all the old gunk from the casting
and off of the thin steel ring.

It's all ready for the new bar and gaskets
when they show up.

So, now we are up to $225 + $108 for a grand
total of $333 and 720 miles driven and 9 hours
work for 2 mechanics to fix the motor.
Do the math.

Oh, and as far as the museum visit is
concerned, that is 13 miles away in the
opposite direction from everything having
to do with the C-250 mission.

That was an extra 26 miles tacked on so that
Shawn could get his first-ever look at
an operating, live, Automatic Electric Co.
step-by-step telephone exchange doing its thing. By that next day, we were both kind
of "Diamond Disc'd" out and needed a bit
of good old fashioned phone phreaking to
relax and have some fun!

This is not all about the money, I am just saying that when one keeps accurate track of
it all, as I always do, then some interesting
numbers and scenarios come to light, that
wouldn't when one chooses not to think about
these details. Fun?? Keeping track of all
details, for me adds immensely to the fun of it all! It also helps keep the spending within reason. This episode just proves that
with some patience, you can hunt 'em in the
wild and come out ok.

Chuck

Were you disappointed that the cabinet was not as nice as it was originally thought to be?

Wes

Nope. No disappointment.
I had pretty solid data going in due to my
brother having gone on a recon mission over
there with his camera the week before.

We would all like to be able to jump into
our time-machine, and go back to 1915, and
walk in to an Edison dealership, and buy a mint, brand new one.

But since there are technical hurdles not
yet jumped over, that would make this possible, I'll settle for the way this deal
turned out. It aint perfect, but it's a whole heck of a lot closer than any other
one I've ever looked at in the 35 years
I've been looking.

Chuck

Chuck and I got the mechanics working very smoothly. I think the 250 is a much better machine than the C-19 in cabinet quality. The decorated mechanism is also nice, The governor on this one, has the more rounded weights of the A/B machines. About 2 weeks previously I had also did some work on a mahogany 250 that I worked on about 22 years, ago, just needed some cleaning and adjustment, and back to work. It had daily use demonstrating in a museum. The Diamond in Chuck's machine looked good in the loupe at first, but if you used a higher power you could see a flat spot on it. The finish on the cabinet really was like new, no checking or crazing, satin finish. As far as being cheap. The most expensive item I have purchased was the 350.00 I paid for the original studio recording head. Most all my machines were basket cases that I paid less than 250.00 for including a AG Graphophone Grand (which needs lots of work, but the motor, and topworks were there.

Chuck,

I must say, I'm very happy you saved this beautiful instrument from a fate which could have been dreadful to think of. I've seen many, many Chippendale parts recently that came from destroyed cabinets. When I come across orphaned parts, I do my best to contact the seller and ask about the rest of the machine for my database project, and without exception, the cabinets have been previously destroyed by coming in contact with a wet environment. I shudder to think "what if" and someone had decided they didn't have the room in their garage for your machine and it had gotten removed to the side of the garage under a tarp. That was exactly the fate of a few unlucky Chippendales I've researched.

Fran

Unfortunately, the later C-19 cabinets were cheapened to the point where they have little tolerance for less-than-ideal storage conditions. The C-250 and earlier C-19 cabinets seem to be far more robust.

George P.

Thank you gentlemen, for the nice comments.
I worked hard to get it here and then Shawn
and I worked some more to put it right.

For those of you who missed the tongue-in-cheek reference to "2 mechanics and 9 hours
work"....that was Shawn and I which I was
referring to.

And we did work on it for 9 hours.

I have caught a little flack off to the side,
about that. Hey, if 9 hours is too much,
then, as Steve Martin says:

"Well EXCUUUUSE MEE!"

But thanks to those gentlemen who actually have something nice to say, instead of writing
me nastygrams about it all. In the end, maybe
I should have just quietly went and got this
machine, and said nothing about it.

However, then there would not have been this
highly amusing and bizzare thread to read
all about it.

But, I did learn from you all, how to move it
safely. That was very important to me, and
again, thank you all for your help!

I have caught some flack too.

But, as the old world war 2 bomber pilots
always said: "When you encounter thick flack,
that means you are right over the target!"

Chuck

When it comes to how a phonograph works, I think Chuck and I are over the top. A phonograph better play many records, smoothly, loudly, clearly, or it don't go out the door. Hundreds of phonographs at Union and it was hard to find something to play a 2 minute cylinder, that met this criteria. An acoustic phonograph should not warble, not sound tinny, be at the correct speed. Even customer phonographs it is not uncommon for me to put 10-20 hours in adjusting, and having it pass my performance test. There was a little Columbia with a lyric reproducer at Union, and that one of the talking machines tested that played the best. Other machines had issues with the half nut adjustment.