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I bought this L-door Victrola from an estate yesterday and I really didn't have any time to look at what all was in the drawer until I got home. I almost didn't bother answering the ad as there isn't much room around here for another machine, but I guess we all know how that one goes. Haha.

It really turned out to be a nice surprise for a change as it's always been in the same family and in the same house since the early 1950's. The grandparents of the woman that passed away bought it new in 1911 as you can see in the scans. I didn't post pictures of all the receipts, et. that were in the machine, but there is certainly enough here to make the machine much more interesting than the usually are. For some reason the original bill of sale isn't in there, and it makes me wonder if the guy never got one. The records are really nothing to get excited about and from the pile of books I saw there, they were very religious people or at least that's about the only thing they seem to have been reading. The daughter that ended up with the machine sang and played the violin and was young when the Victrola was new so they bolted a music holder to the back of the Victrola at her height and that came with it as well. After I get it washed off and put back together I can post more pictures of the thing. All of the albums are there and they are in very nice shape. Someone went to the trouble of nailing felt strips on the bottoms of the albums to keep them from wearing and they must have been worried about record wear as there's still a lifetime supply of bamboo needles and several needle pointers to choose from including one like I've never seen before. Also those "Tusko" needles are a new one on me as well. I had to take it all apart to get it out of the basement and later today I'll finish cleaning it and put it back together. I forgot my two wheel cart and the basement steps were very steep. Really dry basement though as there is no loose veneer on the thing and only a little bit of rust on one of the rear castors! The paper label in the machine has a July, 1910 date on it.

It's getting to be so unusual to find a machine like this untouched, that even though the machine itself is nothing special, it's kind of nice I think to show how these things were kept and used when they were new and the fact too that this one got $65 down and $15 a month until the balance was paid. There are a couple of electric records from the 20's in there and someone bought an electric machine in the late 30's so some of the records that would have been bought for that machine were placed in this one. It seems that they must have bought a radio in the early 20's and pretty much stopped buying records for it by then. The gal handling the estate said they had a really old radio "with some of the bulbs broken" but it was out in the garage and I forgot to look at it.

Here's the Tusko needle card.

What a great treasure trove of documentation. I would have been thrilled to find anything like that in my machines. I'm looking forward to seeing the XVI photos. Thanks for posting.

Wow! Congratulations! To me, the artifacts are as, or more, valuable than the instrument sometimes.

Fran

Very nice. I am trying to determine what was actually paid for the machine alone. Were some of the record numbers listed on the any receipts still in the machine..??.
The Tusko needle packets do come up and are shown in George & Tim's book "Accessories & Contraptions" page 105. They are also found in the May-August 1909 Talking Machine World.

Very nice group of documents and artifacts! I agree that these items sometimes outshine the machines. And finding these "time capsules" in the wild is indeed becoming more and more infrequent.

Congratulations!

George P.

License-label date of July 1910...

What type of record folders does this machine have, the VTLA type "box" folders, or the later style book-type folders ?


I have a 1909 XVI, suffix C (stamped over B) that came with original folders, records, and bill of sale from John Wanamaker in Philadelphia.


Attached is a photo of the Bill of Sale from mine, for ballpark pricing. (Sorry the picture is not sharper...)

Frank, if you googlemap 2108 South Mole Street, Philadelphia PA, you'll see that location on the map and you can get a street view of what almost certainly is the very house of the address on the receipt. It's a typical two-story brick row (end of row, in this case) seen by the hundreds, probably thousands, in Phila. working class neighborhoods, and it's almost right around the corner from the famous Melrose Diner on Passyunk Ave. Here we are almost 105 years later, and the house (and your phonograph) are still extant, though sadly not Wanamaker's. and

Wanamaker Dept Store is now Macy's Center City and is very much alive.
It has the Largest fully working Pipe Organ in the world and is played three times every business day.

Those receipts like that are really interesting and it's too bad that they didn't keep up the habit of putting drawers in machines as so much more of the paper stuff would have survived. I have a business card from a guy that owned a Brunswick Panatrope I have and that house is still standing up in St. Paul. He must have had quite a practice at the time judging from the size house they lived in. But Doctors often did surgery in their homes up until WWII so I suppose part of the house may have been given over to that.

Well are a few pictures of that machine. The serial number on the ID tag is 25288-C and the serial number on the reproducer is 406551. The date on the license information is 7-11-10 and the lot number on the cabinet is 51-C. That music holder is sort of a bizarre addition and the gal doing the tag sale said there was a HUGE amount of sheet music in the house, along with a really nice looking upright piano. She thought there was a bunch of violin music in there, but I wonder if someone played an instrument where they sat down? That would make more sense than putting that music holder low for a child. Unless the kid was taking lessons on something where sitting would be the norm.

Holy cow for the Operatic and generally awful music in that thing. A lot of it's Violin, Cello, Harp and that sort of thing. There are receipts for a big bunch of the records that pretty much seem to still be with the thing. Three of the 10" albums are full and all four of the 12" albums are full.

There are a number of lists of records that they were either going to purchase, or eventually did I suppose. Whoever bought that thing started out with a vengeance, that's for sure. There is an old gal about 50 miles from her and her father was a fairly well known violinist back in the 20's and before. I guess he played for a number of orchestras and so forth and in the 20's I'm pretty sure that he worked for Phil Spitalny before he went the "all girl" route. He lived down in the Moline area and Connie said her Dad helped organize an orchestra down in the quad city area around the turn of the century. She must be in her 90's now, I haven't seen her for a long time but she was a very good pianist in her own right. Her Dad must have been good because when she sold his violin 25 years ago she something like $80,000 for the thing and had guys come from all over the world to play it first! After her father died she loaned it out and then she thought she was going to kick the bucket 25 years ago, so she decided to sell the thing. So maybe the people that owned this Victrola had some connection to the musical people in that part of the country back then. I'll have to see if I can get in touch with any family members and find out. And of course a lot of people made music at home 100 years ago.

They had a heck of a time with those bamboo needles from all the sharpening contrivances they looked in to! that brass paper fastener container is almost full of bamboo needles.