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I believe there was a phonograph shop that repainted these phonographs with folk lore. I do not know if this is original or valuable. It needs a lot of work and inside parts lots of inside parts. Tom https://orangecounty.craigslist.org/atq ... 73442.html

If you were looking for something to decorate your Gypsy caravan with, this would be great...

George Grotz (The Furniture Doctor) wrote of bein apprenticed to a notable decorator who'd paint stripped down pieces of victorian furniture in peasant style - and sold them for high price. This isn't quite in that category but does look decently done and might be worth preserving as is.

Personally it is a bit too brash for my taste. Most of the painted cabinets were very sophisticated.

poor Brunswick!

Time to break out the stripper and the Deft Lacquer.

I like that! I wouldn't change it. I think that may be painted in a folk style from Sweden. They would decorate chests like that. The music theme makes it unique. I think that decoration goes back to when the machine was new. It was clearly very special to someone.



I'm going to tell a quick story here...

I was buying records on eBay and I would always ask sellers if they had any more to add to the deal to save money on shipping. One seller told me he did, but the records were very special. He lived in Northern California in the Gold Country. He said that 25 years earlier, he had lived next to a retirement home. He befriended an old Gemran man who lived there. He was almost 100 years old and had lived for decades in the back country in a cabin. He had become too old to live on his own like that, so the county had put him in the home. The man had emigrated to America from Germany to become a gold miner. He built a log cabin next to a river and built a sluice box. There was no electricity but he had a wind up phonograph he used to entertain himself. When he died, the old man left him his records- a small box of them. He had no way to play them, so he sold them to me. When they arrived they were in a couple of tattered volumes, but they were carefully taken care of. There were some red seal opera records, a few German folk songs, and a copy of Al Jolson singing California Here I Come. I put the Jolson on my Victrola and played it, and was instantly overwhelmed by the fact that that old German gold prospector had listened to this very record in a cabin in the middle of the California gold country. I flashed on what that must have been like- a difficult life with music as the bright spot of hope. I keep those folders separate from the rest of my collection. I could organize them into my regular collection, but I don't. They're special.

I have a feeling that this phonograph is very special too. You might not know the story behind it any more, but if you look at it, it isn't hard to picture a Swedish immigrant whose only contact with the music of his homeland is through the records he plays on this phonograph. Screw the way this phonograph looked when it came from the factory. This particular machine has become its own special thing. If I had it, I would fix it up and play Swedish music on it and get overwhelmed.

Perhaps it belonged to Marc Chagall ?