The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Can anyone tell from the pictures if this is fumed oak or not?
https://dallas.craigslist.org/ndf/atq/6116759761.html

I believe it's regular oak.Fumed is much darker.

Fumed Oak can be dark or light, apparently depending upon the time the cabinet was exposed to the fumes. Here's an earlier thread which includes photos of a Fumed oak Victrola XI with its original shipping crate marked "F.O." and you'll see it's quite light colored.

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... k&start=30

George P.

This looks like Victor's "Early English Oak" finish, though it could be an "Antique Oak" example which had been enthusiastically cleaned at one point.

Got it. Thanks. Sure like the fumed oak. Id like to find one some day.

When you say "Fumed", do you mean dark. VERY dark, as in "Flemish Oak", perhaps?

Somewhat lighter as in "Weathered Oak"
or "Early English Oak" or my personal favorite, "Gunmetal Oak" All of these finishes were fumed, AND THEN DYED DARKER.

Even Gustav Stickley darkened his fumed oak finish with dyes.

By the way, all of these photos come from Paul Edie's excellent resource: "The Victor-Victrola Page."

This webpage gives some good examples of the different oak finishes used by Victor. I like the way the ammonia fumed oak shows more grain and has an amber/gray color. True fumed oak is quite impressive in person and easily distinguishable from a standard oak finish. Im not sure that they didnt use a weathered or aged oak to start with also. Some of them I have seen really had a noticeable gray color. I juts couldn't tell in the picture of the one I posted about whether it was fumed or not. Im on the fence about it but, it seems that Victor reserved the fumed finish for some of their fancier cabinets too. . Might have to see it in person. I have used ammonia in the past on curly maple to replicate an Argentine gray finish and it worked really well. I use to be in the banjo building business and experimented with a lot of different finishes and woods so, I have a deep appreciation for beautiful wood. Heres an example of some of my wood staining/finishing on one of the banjos that I built.