The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Gentle Sirs,

a used records seller showed me yesterday a Colibri ultra-portable he has for sale in his shop. The little folding gramophone is in good condition and, as far as I can tell, complete of all of its components; but alas the spring of the motor is broken. And yes: it is broken and not only disengaged, unfortunately. A fragment of the spring is held inside the box, as probably someone in the past already inspected the motor to see what the problem was. The winding key revolves freely and with no feeling of resistance; so I suppose the repair attempt failed.

Kindly, anyone who has repaired or anyway knows these little machines very well: is there a chance to replace its motor spring with some generic spare part available on the market? Or is the spring used in this model a rare, one-of-a-kind type?

Also, the seller has no clue about the selling price, and I also don't know how much to offer. What would be a fair selling price for a broken Colibri in pretty nice conditions?

Thank you very much.

They used to sell for £300 in perfect working order , but I think this may be more than it would be worth at the moment , possibly nearer £200 , the spring shouldn't be a problem , but it could cost £100 to source and have a spring fitted , so I reckon as is you should only pay £100 for it maximum

Marco,
It goes without saying that when dealing with an antique dealer "who doesn't know what to ask", its because he got it really cheap... That being said, you need to tell him that it is not worth anything to you or anyone else in its current non-working condition. Because of that, the cost of repairing it is expensive if you can't do it yourself and it would cost him just as much to get it working. I would offer $50 for it and see where that goes - he can only say "no" - then if you really want it up the price. You live in Italy, dickering on price should be second nature to you...

Thank you very much for your replies. But where can I find a spring that fits? Is there any online spare parts seller that has any on his catalogue? In other words: with which other gramophone models does the Colibri share its motor spring (if any)?

I don't think I am going to buy it unless I know beforehand that there actually is the possibility to fix it.

No way to know what spring is inside without disassembling it... If you buy it cheap - $50, or so... if you can't fix it, I will buy it from you so you won't lose money.

well marco
if i remember corectly there's a swiss made motor in these little colibri's most of these swiss motors have a mainspring of 22 milimeter
with the piece in the case you could make measurements
if you got the spec's of the mainspring you could order it from the gramophoneshop in holland [email protected]



greetings
tino

Thank you very much for your precious information, Tino!