The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Just brought home a not-so-common 1922 Victrola model VV-111 SN 1543. The 4 spring motor was very slow and clunky, but now it purrs like a kitten after some refurbishing. See it run on YouTube:

http://youtu.be/egq9V_7XzLM

Next is the cabinet.

CDB

You encourage me to tackle the motor on my Credenza! Thanks for sharing.

Congrats on your 111. They sound great in my opinion, probably due to the larger horn. Here is my 111 in American Walnut.

That's a beautiful machine, Sonny! I'll bet it sounds great with the huge horn, and fat tone arm with no. 2 sound box.

SonnyPhono wrote:Congrats on your 111. They sound great in my opinion, probably due to the larger horn. Here is my 111 in American Walnut.

If only mine looked as nice as yours... All the parts are there, but they've had a rough life. At least the motor and reproducer in mine are in great condition!

CDB

I was lucky enough to get a VV-111 some years ago. When the power went out for 2 days one August, I put this one to the task of nightly entertainment and it performed well. Quiet motor, as discussed here, and good sound too. Mine looks much as if it saw very little use: zero wear on the gold plated tonearm crook or fittings, no fading on the (brown) felt turntable, the albums were all beautifully intact, most were empty and looked unused, there were only perhaps 8 or 9 records with it, and few needles either. The crank was missing but found in the locked record cabinet (the key was missing). For this reason I was able to get this one quite reasonably, since nobody knew if it worked. It did, and very well. One side is quite crazed and sun faded where it sat in front of a window (in the attic??) for decades. The rest still has a nice sheen. Interestingly, the external parts were finished in flat black: the knobs, crank and crank escutcheon. Looks to be original, too. No casters, just the little glides on the bottom of the legs. I'm glad to see this model discussed here, since I thought it was a fine machine---glad to see that others agree.

Notice any difference?

Here are some before/after pics. The cabinet cleaned up real nice.

http://78records.cdbpdx.com/TTVV111/

Still have to wax and clean up some of the gold.

Wow, what did you use to remove all that graffiti?

Retrograde wrote:Wow, what did you use to remove all that graffiti?

Simple Green with 0000 steel wool to remove the graffitti, then Howard's Restor-a-Finish. Oh, yeah, and lots of elbow grease.