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Has anyone run across a Columbia BI with brass horn and black tonearm/back bracket? I am looking at this machine but I have only seen them with nickel.

Please help.

T

Have you seen the machine in person or only in photos? Incandescent lighting very office gives shiny nickel a brass-like amber tone in photos. To my eyes that looks more like nickel than brass.

If it is brass, it may have just been stripped of the original nickel plating.

What about the black tone arm and bracket I thought they were supposed to be nickel as well

I wonder if someone was over zealous in trying to polish the horn and tonearm. Removing the plating off the horn would have left it brass but removing the plating off the tonearm and back bracket would have left a dull grey metal. The original plating was probably in bad shape. It was probably painted to cover that up.

phonogal wrote:I wonder if someone was over zealous in trying to polish the horn and tonearm. Removing the plating off the horn would have left it brass but removing the plating off the tonearm and back bracket would have left a dull grey metal. The original plating was probably in bad shape. It was probably painted to cover that up.

I have not seen it in person but from the pictures that they showed me it looks brass and they admitted it was not nickel. They described it was brass. So I agree it was probably in bad shape or over polished and they may have painted it, what a shame....

The horn looks like nickel to me. Like what Rene said, the light can give the illusion of brass. Also, Columbia did use black back brackets and tone arms, on their client machines. One way to tell is if there is a screw like knob on the opposite side of the tone arm. That is the Dolcher volume control. The BI tone arm and elbow is bigger than the standard tone arm and elbow. If that's the case, then the arm is painted black. If not, then the bracket, arm and elbow is wrong for this. If you can, look at this machine in person.
Harvey Kravitz

Not only is the arm and back bracket larger than the common set up, it also mounts differently with a larger three bolt footprint. It would be obvious if someone had put the wrong back bracket on this since the witness marks would be off. Also, the arm is longer, so a quick check to see if the needle passes over the center of the record spindle would indicate that it is proper (or not). While it is a bit hard to tell from the picture, it appears to me that that machine has the correct back bracket and tone arm (which were both nickel plated originally), however they likely have been painted black. Below is a picture of a BI with a brass petalled horn. Cheers, Russie


PS, In my experience, it is not easy to remove nickel from brass, unless it was very thin, or a poor plating job to begin with (Columbia is not known, to me anyway, to do poor plating on their high end machines). Unlike iron or aluminum, nickel bonds quite well to brass.

Did Columbia even nickel-plate brass? Tin, yes. Brass?

startgroove wrote:Not only is the arm and back bracket larger than the common set up, it also mounts differently with a larger three bolt footprint. It would be obvious if someone had put the wrong back bracket on this since the witness marks would be off. Also, the arm is longer, so a quick check to see if the needle passes over the center of the record spindle would indicate that it is proper (or not). While it is a bit hard to tell from the picture, it appears to me that that machine has the correct back bracket and tone arm (which were both nickel plated originally), however they likely have been painted black. Below is a picture of a BI with a brass petalled horn. Cheers, Russie


PS, In my experience, it is not easy to remove nickel from brass, unless it was very thin, or a poor plating job to begin with (Columbia is not known, to me anyway, to do poor plating on their high end machines). Unlike iron or aluminum, nickel bonds quite well to brass.

So Brass horn is correct, but tone arm and back bracket are painted? Going with what Mr. Harvey pointed out. It does in fact have the volume knob opposite the reproducer. So I do believe its the original tone arm. Just painted.along with back bracket... Does that sound right?

jboger wrote:Did Columbia even nickel-plate brass? Tin, yes. Brass?

Yes. The horns, elbows, and dust rings are brass underneath.