The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Spotted in a local antique store. Did this have the same case as the Amberola 1B? At any rate It has a broken mainspring (unless there is a pin that can shear off like the early Victor motors. There is no resistance to the crank. I was wondering if it takes the same mainsprings as the later diamond disk machines, or a special one. The Motor looks like it has very beefy cast iron spring barrels. Also there was a strange wooden box inside, can anyone tell me if it is part of the player, and what it held originally?

What you have is an early A250 with a three digit serial number. Why is it not in the back of your vehicle?

The early ones also came with louvres on the sides of the horn opening. I'm not too sure what that small box is for. Accesories?

Yes, this one has the louvres. The dealer has not decided how much he wants for it yet (he just bought it yesterday). I'm not a big diamond disk fan and don't really have the room for it. He's pretty sure it's a higher priced machine, but he only had to give $130 for it at auction. I told him I would give him $400, but I thought he could get more. Now if it had been an amberola (first spotted this one with the lid down and almost fainted) it would be in my car and replacing the VV-XVII in my dining rooom. It sounds really nice (turned manually). It also came with the reproducer box.

This is a good buy at even $600.

Garret

I called him back up, and he's agreed to sell it to me for $400. I think it's time for an intervention as I have no idea where I'm going to put this.

Now I just need to figure out what's going on with the springs. There was no resistance at all,so I suspect it either came unhooked or broke at the center, or one of the winding gears is loose on the shaft.

Nice find Bill! Congrats! Bring the motor by sometime and we'll put our heads together on it. Beautiful machine!

Brad Abell

The A250s are nice machines. I love mine. Am a little jealous of your very early one. Mine is a later example without the side louvers. Basically it looks like you now have one of the earliest production Diamond Disc machines to go out the factory door.

Clay

Beautiful machine! Congratulations! Cliff

The crank that came with my A250 doesn't look like any other Edison crank I've seen and I always thought it was something someone used just because it fit. After comparing it to the crank with your machine, I think it could be original. See attached photo. For the last couple years, I've been using a crank from a C250 as a replacement in my A250. Glad I didn't lose track of this one!

Cliff

Cliff,

Try cleaning the shaft with some ammonia on a paper towel. You may be surprised at how well the gold comes through. I was. Mine had an, I think, original coat of shellac over the metal that had gotten grungy and the ammonia took it right off and it won't harm the gold.

Clay