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Intersting. Is this a custom done by Victor?.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Victrola-Model- ... SwB4NWuhHz

This is one of Victor's Art Painted machines. Very pretty

All the Chinese Victrola's I have seen are painted a bright red under the lid (motor board and surround) as well as the underside of the dome, the inside of the record compartments, and horn. This looks to me like someone's botched home painting project. Just my opinion.

Mike

The blue paint should also be behind the decal shouldn't it? There used to be two painted Victrolas here in town when I was a kid, one was white and the other had scenes painted on the cabinet. But the white machine had the paint under the decal. I remember my Dad pointing that out to me. It looked ok at the time, but in those days $10 seemed like a lot of money for a dirty white Victrola! They smoked a lot at that house.

This is an aftermarket job, well done. A job done for Victor would have been painted first and then had the decal applied over the paint.

It does appear to have had it's interior repainted. Ironically, the color seems to be a factory shade.

Victor did offer a number of pastel shades (red, green and blue..etc) in the interior of their Oriental lacquer finished Victrolas.

('The Talking Machine an illustrated Compendium' (Paul & Fabrizio) page 225)

Victor had VERY high standards on their finishes. When they left the factory they were top quality.

That lid decal is partially hand painted. I'm going to bet that didn't leave the factory like that. In my opinion it still looks like someone's home painted craft project.

Mike

I imagine most large cities had business that would decorate talking machines for a price. In my opinion this Victrola was decorated by such a business. I also imagine that painting around the Victrola decal was a difficult part of the process. Perhaps the thickness of the paint varied around the edge of the decal. Over time, this thickness became more obvious and the result made the appearance look less than professional. Jerry Blais

Jerry B. wrote:I imagine most large cities had business that would decorate talking machines for a price. In my opinion this Victrola was decorated by such a business. I also imagine that painting around the Victrola decal was a difficult part of the process. Perhaps the thickness of the paint varied around the edge of the decal. Over time, this thickness became more obvious and the result made the appearance look less than professional. Jerry Blais

I agree Jerry. These same private companies were also offering horn decorating. I don't think anyone questions the crudeness of the interior paint. However, as stated above....factory decorated models can be found in a variety of pastel shades, including a powder blue much like we see on this model.
Maybe, they were trying to copy Victor's color scheme...??.