The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

My first machine was a Victor VV-IV which my Dad found for me when I was 8 or 9 years old in 1952/53. Unfortunately it ultimately did not survive a young would-be mechanical genius, and it disappeared many years ago. The first machine I bought was a ca. 1918 VV-XI. I bought that one from the original owner for the princely sum of $5.00 sometime around 1956/57. By then, I was older and somewhat wiser and took good care of that one. I would probably still have it but changing circumstances dictated that I couldn't keep it. However, that little VV-IV started something that stayed with me and 7 years later, in 1970 right after I got out of the military, I found a $25.00 VV-IX and returned to collecting with my wife's blessing.

Jim

Yes I till have my first gramophone an HMV table grand in oak. Whilst it has darkened on the outside when you open the lid you get the full effect of what the outside once looked like. It also has a sellers decal on the inside of the lid to die for

It doesn't get used much these days but I would never sell it as it was the first one I ever bought back in the early 1980's.

My first old phonograph was a VV 50 which I acquired in 1969. It was sold twenty years later and I regretted it. Thankfully another VV 50 was acquired at the phonograph show in California in 2011.

Phonofreak wrote: Sat Feb 14, 2015 12:10 am My first machine was an oak Victrola VI, a late one with the nice feet on the bottom. In 1988,I bought it at an antique store in Lemon Grove, CA, near San Diego. I just came back from deployment to the Gulf. I had that machine aboard ship until I transferred. I had that machine shipped to me when I was stationed in Bremerton, WA. I still have that machine.
Harvey Kravitz

I may be ten years late to this but I know exactly what store you are talking about! I live near it and visit quite frequently as their prices haven't changed since 1988

Absolutely not! My first talking machine was an HMV 102 portable gramophone in black case which I bought at an antique fair whilst hoping to find a horn machine. Other machines quickly followed including two HMV horn models within 6 months, by which time I had been introduced to two specialist dealers - nothing of much interest ever turns up in the wild anywhere close to me.

Although I like to think I am quite a discerning buyer (certainly a few dealers have suggested as much when I've pointed out obvious faults that they've "missed" in the past), I don't own a single machine I bought in my first 4 years of collecting. Everything got upgraded or replaced in 5 years, not to mention, heavily consolidated.

Not exactly the first machine that I bought, but I still have the first gramophone I remember hearing and playing. A portable Paillard from the mid fourties, that belonged to my aunt and could play both manually and electrically. It had also a mechanical soundbox and an electrical pickup. It was in my grandfather's mountain house and we used to play records in it during vacations. Unfortunately the motor is not working, and I don't feel competent to fix such hybrid motors.

For me, it has always been about the music on the records. The hardware just came along for the ride.

If we extend the definition of phonograph beyond the scope of the word as it is generally used here, then, No, I do not have my first "phonograph." It was a post-war, 1940s RCA Victor (I remember the dog) table top electrical machine. My aunt gave it to me when I was about five-years-old. (In some respects, Sadly) I was given free access to my father's substantial collection of 78s, which slowly became less substantial in my five-year-old hands. The machine is long gone. A large number of those 78s remain.

With the music, there was no going back .... I have been a shellac and vinyl junkie all my life since then.

As I have related elsewhere here, my first talking machine was a 1920 Aeolian Vocalian pagoda-top, floor standing, upright cabinet gramophone. It was mis-listed in the musical instruments section of Craigslist, together with a collection of 78s, all at a very modest price. I sent the link to my wife. She then insisted, now only mildly to her regret, that we buy it. We have only had it a very few years.

She remains fairly tolerant of the phonograph collection slow creep.

I don't know how it happens. Despite the best of intentions and firmest or resolves, the darn things just seem to follow you home, like stray puppies or kittens that you stopped to pet along the way.

I still have my first machine--an Edison Home Phonograph I bought as a kid in 1980. Just oiled it yesterday, and it runs like a charm. When I bought it, the prevailing technology for recording and reproducing sound hadn't changed fundamentally for a century. Since then, the acceleration of digital technologies and AI have made the analogue world seem quaint.

First was a VV-90 but only have so much space so it had to go. On the other hand, I still have the records my grandparents had from the 1910s and 1920s, all operatic and classical.

My first Edison Phonograph was an Amberola 30, I was given 60 years ago.

Still have it.

Marc