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Hi everyone!
I just had a quick question concerning L Door Victrola albums. I have an L Door from 1911 but it is missing all of the original albums that came with it. Would this machine have had the earlier style record boxes or the red record albums that came in the later XVI's? Any help would be appreciated. (I am looking for original albums/boxes and would like to know which type to look for!)

-Steve

You'll find this thread of interest.

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... rola+boxes

Great, thanks for sharing that link with me! Now I know I need to look for the record boxes.

Steve, actually your machine probably would have had the first generation of bound albums.
The previous post you viewed dealt with a machine where Victor was probaly using up the last of the record box sets from stock. If you know that your VV-XVI L Door was made in 1911 is it a "C" or a "D"? There were several cabinet changes with the B suffix. I believe it was at this time or just a little later with the cabinet and door changes that Victor changed to the first bound albums that held 15 records but still had the same of ring pulls as the original boxes.
If you know that your machine was made in 1911 by the next year in 1912 Victor would drop the L shaped door all together and the conventional 10 sleeve cloth bound album would be adopted.

Best Wishes,
Darren

The boxes are VERY hard to find. They can be found, but it will be an up hill battle. I agree that yours probably used the albums/books instead of the boxes. I recently restored an L-Door of similar vintage to yours. The thread is found here should you be interested: http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... =2&t=15715 .

Search eBay frequently for the albums and they show up eventually. I finally found the ones I needed to finish this machine, but it took a while. Post in Yankee Trader on this site and you may get lucky there. Good Luck!

Matt

The reason why I think my L door had the boxes is because it is a type C, and someone on a previous thread said that their type C has record boxes, not the albums. To be more specific, my L door has a bullet brake, and according to the Victor Victrola website, can be dated to January 1911, which was very early in the year. Was 1911 the year in which they switched from boxes to albums?

If you drop the panel on the back-side of the machine, you should see a paper license-label glues to one of the sides... in the lower left-hand corner, you should find a date indicating when the label was printed. This gives a very close indication of when your machine was built.

I have a 1909 XVI, suffix-C (stamped over the letter "B" on the plate); mine has box-albums. Bullet-brake, large round knob & pointer speed control.

I am attaching a picture of the license label from my L-door. In this case, the serial number of the machine is rubber-stamped in red-ink on the upper RH corner of the License label.

The "Box Albums" are also known as "VTLA ALbums".

De Soto Frank wrote:If you drop the panel on the back-side of the machine, you should see a paper license-label glues to one of the sides... in the lower left-hand corner, you should find a date indicating when the label was printed. This gives a very close indication of when your machine was built.

I have a 1909 XVI, suffix-C (stamped over the letter "B" on the plate); mine has box-albums. Bullet-brake, large round knob & pointer speed control.

I am attaching a picture of the license label from my L-door. In this case, the serial number of the machine is rubber-stamped in red-ink on the upper RH corner of the License label.

I just checked, mine says February 24 1911. The guy I bought it from said that his Great Uncle bought it in 1912. I also found some broken up card board like paper in the back of one of the album shelves. It wasn't green, but it did look faded. Could this be evidence of albums not boxes? I suppose it is more likely mine had the albums.

My machine was manufactured in August 1909, but was not sold to its original owner until February 1910, according to the bill of sale from John Wanamaker, in Philadelphia.

I will try to post some pictures of the interior of VTLA Box albums so you have some idea of the color of the dividers...

I have seen the brittle green card-stock and also more of a brownish-tan paper sleeve in period Victor book albums...