The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

A few months ago I found and purchased a Victrola VV-IX..This machine , in excellent condition , is oak , with feet , and a Victrola 2 reproducer.. Serial No 445205..sold by Woodward &Lothrop Inc. Washington D.C. The odd part to this machine is the lid decal...it's upside down...Nipper is standing on his head...there isn't any sign of restoration / refinishing...no plugged screw holes...The question is "has anyone else encountered an upside down Nipper"

A friend of mine has an Amberola upside down decal on a machine with no signs of restoration.

There's also a Vernis-Martin Victrola XVI with the decal upside down. Crazy. I can't help but wonder how could they sell them like that.

George P.

phonogfp wrote:There's also a Vernis-Martin Victrola XVI with the decal upside down. Crazy. I can't help but wonder how could they sell them like that.

George P.

With the lid closed.... .

I think the upside down decal is really interesting. I remember having a discussion with other collector and and several said they would prefer a correctly applied decal. I just couldn't understand that logic. Jerry Blais

Looking at my VV-IX the decal apears applied correctly in the center of the lid. Could it be possible that the lid which was symmetrical was labeled and then incorrectly installed on the line? I can't fathom what QA was like back then.

gramophone78 wrote:

phonogfp wrote:There's also a Vernis-Martin Victrola XVI with the decal upside down. Crazy. I can't help but wonder how could they sell them like that.
George P.

With the lid closed.... .

There is only one man for the job...

It sure is difficult to believe that Victor's final inspection crew would not have caught these upside down decals. Is it not possible that in some of these cases someone with outstanding woodworking skills (for example, somone who could make prior screw holes truly impossible to see) could have simply reversed the lid position, done some incredibly fine "woodwork" and re-installed it? And why would someone in their right mind do this? Perhaps because the screws on the LID-side (as opposed to the screws on the cabinet base-side) of the lid's piano hinge became stripped badly and they thought the only option left was to reverse the lid? Enter the hands and skills of the aforementioned highly skilled wood craftsman. Perhaps not but the concept of such an obvious flaw in assembly leaving Victor for dealer showrooms seems highly improbable. Same with Edison. Unless the factories had a "factory seconds" sales department which, again, seems unlikely.

I wondered if there might have been a repair for stripped hinge screw holes by reversing the lid as well (in order to get strong material for reattaching the hinge). "whoopinola," if you look carefully are there any signs at all of repair on the lip where the hinge would have been attached if the decal were correctly oriented?

Clay

I have personally seen and inspected the Vernis-Martin that George mentioned. The machine is in exceptional original condition. It is speculated that the error was discovered on final inspection and the machine was set aside and eventually sold sometime later as an obsolete Victrola. Lids that have a lock would be almost impossible to reverse in error. The VV-IX doesn't have a lid lock so maybe that's the reason the decal is upside down. Jerry