The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hey Guys, A friend of mine recently showed me his A-250. The bedplate has a blue color on the outside of the pin striping and it can be seen in the chipped areas. I am not so sure how well the color will come through here, but I was wondering if it is a primer, as the brown does look to be original. Has anyone come across something like this, or any ideas on what it may be. The 1st picture has a black bracket just to show contrast in colors. Thanks for your input.

Gary



ps(I do believe he is selling it, if anyone is interested)

Here is a picture of my A250 bed plate. Just bare metal under the flaking paint.

The blue makes you wonder if it was some ill advised attempt at a touchup. If that machine were mine and I wanted to keep the deck as unrestored, I would take a Q-tip, dip it in lacquer thinner and try in a small spot which would normally be hidden under the turntable. Lacquer thinner will help remove more recent paint while leaving old paint. I would suggest wearing protective gloves and avoid the original paint. Jerry B.

This is the 1st I've seen with the blue paint and I've seen about a dozen in person. It just struck me odd that it must be a repaint, though it does look like original on top. Even the pin striping looks original(as far as I can tell.) I may have him try your idea with the lacquer thinner Jerry. Thanks

Edison should have done a better job of prepping the metal on those earlier bedplates. I worked for a guy back in the 1980's that started painting back in the 1920's and did wood graining for the Packard company for awhile in the 30's. Bill was over here one day and saw an A-250 I had sitting here and the first thing he said was, whoever was painting those at the factory didn't clean that iron the way they should have. Bill figured they put an oil film on the iron castings or something to keep them from rusting when they left the foundry. When it came time to finish them they weren't cleaned properly and eventually the paint let go. It probably didn't cause them much trouble when they were new though. I told him that all of them seemed to do that, and he gave them credit for being "uniformly wrong". Bill had his ideas about things, but I think he was probably right on these bedplates.