The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

So, what's the split?

I'm always worried that the lock will jam and not un-lock.

I selected only once, but lately any machine that has a lock stays locked. You see my house is for sale, & I noticed early that some potential buyers couldn't resist touching the machines or my antique china dolls.

I'm one of those who don't want to have to call a locksmith, so I don't use the locks, just in case they jam or something.

I'm also afraid one of the machines will lock shut so I never lock them. I've seen too many machines with screwdriver damage because they had to be pried open at one time...

I don't lock my record cabinets....except, of course, for the ones that house the red Columbias!



Mold

I just got a key on ebay for my VV-100 so I just had to try the lock. It works. Now that I know that I won't lock it again.

What WAS the usual reason that people way back then would lock their phonograph lid? I know if I had a bunch of little male kids, I can imagine how impossible it would be for them to resist messing around with it - punching thru the diaphragm with their thumb, getting needles and swallowing them etc. Almost any kid that could walk could also reach his hand up there and wreak havoc.

frenchmarky wrote:What WAS the usual reason that people way back then would lock their phonograph lid? I know if I had a bunch of little male kids, I can imagine how impossible it would be for them to resist messing around with it - punching thru the diaphragm with their thumb, getting needles and swallowing them etc. Almost any kid that could walk could also reach his hand up there and wreak havoc.

When you think about it, almost everthing of any value seemed to have a lock on it in those early days, fine furniture, trunks and chests, bedroom dressers. Why on earth would you want to lock a drawer that just contained your underwear?

Just a theory but phonograph records were pretty valuable relatively speaking, $.25 - $6.00 and on up for some of the opera stuff. But even if you did not have any kids, probably having a lock on it attributed much more value to the machine than the actual cost of the lock???

I was fortunate enough to find three (!!!) Victor wreath keys -- one gold and two mill-finish -- in a cigar box full of keys in an antiques mall in Florida a couple of months ago. When I was home last week, I tried them. The gold one worked the lock on my Victrola XII perfectly, and the mill-finish keys worked the lock on the matching side-loading record cabinet. Perfect!