Viva-Tonal 810 in Long Island

[barnettrp21122]

Hmmm...This 810 was listed last week with a starting bid of $500.00. Before the end of the auction the seller revised the price to $600.00. It got no bids. Now it's listed again, with a $675.00 starting price. Isn't this the wrong way to sell something?

Bob

http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-Columbia-Viva- ... tsupported

[B.B.B]

Out of curiosity; How good do they sound, do a 810 really match a Credenza?
They seem to be kind of rare compared to the big Victors.

[maginter]

I think that the 810, or 800 series Columbia sounds better that the Credenza, but that is just my opinion. It definetly weighs more!!!

BTW, the knobs are wrong on that machine..... They should be sall wooden knobs.

Mark

[larryh]

I had a lovely model of this machine. It was well build an heavy as tank. The reproducer is simple to take apart and uses gasket material like the early ones so it user friendly. It has great sound. Only slight drawback to me was that due to the horn using one side of the cabinet, which remains flat as a sound reflector, its rather directional and you had to sit to one side of it in order to get the fullest effect. Its also larger than the Credenza and so eventually when space became and issue I sold it to a collector friend of mine. I would say the price is quite good if its all there. It might even have a slightly larger sound presence and a bit warmer sound, or maybe that is the effect of Columbia Recordings which are much more rounded than Victors of the time.

[brianu]

Hmmm...This 810 was listed last week with a starting bid of $500.00. Before the end of the auction the seller revised the price to $600.00. It got no bids. Now it's listed again, with a $675.00 starting price. Isn't this the wrong way to sell something?

Bob

http://cgi.ebay.com/Rare-Columbia-Viva- ... tsupported

my guess is he doesn't really want to sell it, but would let it go only for the right - meaning high - price. but who knows. some people can be ridiculous in their expectations, others can just be ridiculous. a few years ago I was watching an auction for a concert automatique that was located in PA about an hour from me - it needed some major work, but overall would have come back with some time. the photos were horrible and the thing was in pieces. the seller had an opening bid that he kept lowering from about 1500 or 1600 down to 1300 to 1200, it ended around 1000 or just under with no bids. I backed off at the last minute thinking I just didn't have the time for the project, but then changed my mind a day or so later because it seemed like such a decent deal. so I emailed him and offered him the last opening bid, and his response was like, well, the price now is 1600 (the original starting price), non-negotiable. then he tried to sell me a piano. it was just... ridiculous.

[bbphonoguy]

Hmmm...This 810 was listed last week with a starting bid of $500.00. Before the end of the auction the seller revised the price to $600.00. It got no bids. Now it's listed again, with a $675.00 starting price. Isn't this the wrong way to sell something?

Bob

Obviously the seller realized something at the last minute, that, unlike anything else on ebay, this item is RARE!!!

[brianu]

Hmmm...This 810 was listed last week with a starting bid of $500.00. Before the end of the auction the seller revised the price to $600.00. It got no bids. Now it's listed again, with a $675.00 starting price. Isn't this the wrong way to sell something?

Bob

Obviously the seller realized something at the last minute, that, unlike anything else on ebay, this item is RARE!!!

true, but rare does not always translate to high price. consider some of those scarce victor lowboy/console models that take up more space than many people are willing to sacrifice. plus, some machines may be comparable to a victor credenza, or the hmv counterparts, but they just have issues that the victors and hmv's don't - with the columbias, there's the pot metal for one (and that's a big one... I had one of their ortho set-ups for a time, and it was nice to look at, but it just never functioned that smoothly).

[phonophan79]

Here are the video's the seller references in the auction.

before reproducer rebuild
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jV7QU2zbrwQ[/youtube]

after reproducer rebuild
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUnLTNgVre0[/youtube]

[gramophoneshane]

It sounds really good, but I'm guessing the motor has issues.
The first video, he puts the needle down & it looks like he's going to release the brake, but then lifts the record to show the label, then he leaves the camera off the machine until he's actually lowering the needle on the already spinning record.
The second video he placed the needle down & spins the TT to start it playing.
It all looks a little sus to me
Probably a worn gear or bearing.

[bbphonoguy]

Hmmm...This 810 was listed last week with a starting bid of $500.00. Before the end of the auction the seller revised the price to $600.00. It got no bids. Now it's listed again, with a $675.00 starting price. Isn't this the wrong way to sell something?

Bob

Obviously the seller realized something at the last minute, that, unlike anything else on ebay, this item is RARE!!!

true, but rare does not always translate to high price. consider some of those scarce victor lowboy/console models that take up more space than many people are willing to sacrifice. plus, some machines may be comparable to a victor credenza, or the hmv counterparts, but they just have issues that the victors and hmv's don't - with the columbias, there's the pot metal for one (and that's a big one... I had one of their ortho set-ups for a time, and it was nice to look at, but it just never functioned that smoothly).

Okay, ummmmm.......I need to work on making my sarcasm more obvious. You see, I said "unlike anything else on ebay, this item is RARE!!!", the joke being that about half the stuff on ebay is supposedly "RARE". You see "rare" has become nothing more on ebay than a buzzword equivalent to "L@@K".