The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I wanted to know why on ebay there are two edisonic reproducers a long play reproducer and an edison dance but no one is bidding on them. I've been looking for an edisonic or a dance reproducer should I bid on them?

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Edison-Diamond- ... 5af40c438a

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Edison-Diamond- ... 5af4121504

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Edison-Diamond- ... 5af40c73f8

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Edison-Diamond- ... 5659dd90b4

I see that all four reproducers are for sale by the same dealer. I suspect some people will refuse to buy from him because of his reputation for parting out perfectly good machines. That call is up to you. You can read other threads in this forum regarding that controversial practice, so I won't repeat them here.

Although the seller states that the reproducers play, there is no specific indication of the diamond stylus condition for any of them. All of those models listed are more prone, for various reasons, to stylus wear than the normal reproducers, so I would be concerned about the condition. I have both Dance and Edisonic reproducers and can attest that a worn stylus can indeed play, but at greatly accelerated wear to your records. Good luck finding good replacement stylii, particularly for those models! I would be absolutely certain of return priviledges or wait until I could examine such reproducers in person. I personally use a microscope to examine any reproducer that I buy to assure that I'm getting what I pay for.

Replacement Diamond styli cost £50 to £80 in the UK so you should factor the replacment cost of the stylus in to any purchase unless it's guaranteed !

I sold a bronze edisonic on Ebay about 2 months ago that brought $127. I had a video of it playing and some very good micro photos of the stylus.

The seller is selling them "as is". He's using descriptions like "works, sounds loud, may clean up". Nothing is mentioned about the condition of the styli. You can assume they need to be replaced.

If you plan to use them, technically the Edisonic is better than the Dance. The Dance has that heavy industrial look though and to me is more interesting as a collectible piece. I've got both and almost never use them. The Standard reproducer is just fine 99.9 percent of the time. Better yet, late acoustic and electric discs sound great on modern equipment.