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I've just acquired this 2 clip suitcase model and would appreciate your thoughts on it.
It's number S6002 but the 6 digit appears to have been overstamped on a 4. It has no data plate but has 4 holes for one although i'm not sure one was ever fitted.
It's obviously been converted to a 4 minute machine at some point during it's life ,I think this may have been early on given that I also acquired 90ish blue amberols with it.
The crane support was made about 20 years ago simply so the vendor could put the machine on display , I assume it should really be steel?

Loads of photo's in this album : http://s772.photobucket.com/user/slouke ... 20Standard

Thanks
Steve

Steve,
Firstly a very happy and prosperous New Year to you and all other forum members!.
Congratulations on your aquisition, these are excellent machines which are, to my mind, underrated by many collectors.
The 4 overstamp is fairly common, yours looks as thought the person stamping it has tapped the four, realised his mistake and got a six stamp. I have seen the plate where the number has been filed out to erase a wrong number.
The four holes for a data plate are easily explained. Your machine was imported into the UK by the "Edison Bell" company who held the licence here and was fitted with an aluminium plate stating conditions.
I have attached a photo.
Alistair.

Congratulations on the find! It's great to see the many alterations through the life of a phonograph such as yours. The crane mount is really for a cygnet horn / crane. The machine probably was upgraded to the 2&4 minute configuration with the addition of the gears and Diamond B reproducer which is to play on 4 minute blue Amberol cylinders only. If I had that, I would find a cygnet crane and a #10 cygnet horn. Here is a photograph is of a Fireside but you get the idea of the horn setup.

clevelander wrote: The four holes for a data plate are easily explained. Your machine was imported into the UK by the "Edison Bell" company who held the licence here and was fitted with an aluminium plate stating conditions.
I have attached a photo.
Alistair.

Thanks Alistair - I shall have to find one of those data plates!

Andersun wrote:Congratulations on the find! It's great to see the many alterations through the life of a phonograph such as yours. The crane mount is really for a cygnet horn / crane. The machine probably was upgraded to the 2&4 minute configuration with the addition of the gears and Diamond B reproducer which is to play on 4 minute blue Amberol cylinders only. If I had that, I would find a cygnet crane and a #10 cygnet horn. Here is a photograph is of a Fireside but you get the idea of the horn setup.

That does look nice - I shall have to keep an eye on Ebay. Cygnets seem more readily available in the US than the the UK

I have a nice 11-panel cygnet that I was going to send to the US to a member of this forum - the measures turned out to be different for the US and so it became ridiculously expensive... let´s see if I can PM you...