The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

As some of you know, I have been restoring a Cardinal Phonograph, built ~1921.

Well, I came across THIS eBay auction:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... _500wt_977


All of the nickel plating on mine is pretty bad, so, I figured, OK, for a good price, I can get a new crank (mine has almost no nickel remaining) speed control, turntable! and, best of all...a working motor! It's not the *exact* same one, but it looks close enough to be a drop in replacement. Worst case scenario, I would just swap the spring barrels, and have a fully functional phonograph. Oh, and the auction included a nice Tone Arm, seeing how mine is broken. Literally, it had everything I needed.


I sat...and waited..for 15 minutes. Opened two windows, and submitted my bid. I clicked "Confirm" with 7 seconds left (plenty of time on my connection) and at that EXACT moment...it hiccuped. The page loaded LITERALLY one second after the auction closed. My bid was not submitted in time.


I think I'm going to cry.

The springs in the one I have now are totally shot. One is broken, and the other (the main one) has "ripped" out of the protruded area on the barrel, where the spring connects to be wound.


I just can't win....no matter what I do, I just cannot win.

See if the seller has other items listed and contact him that way.

Next time try a free sniping service like Gixen. Nothing makes a bid at the last second as precisely as a computer. I resisted it for a long time, believing in pure, old fashioned sniping, but in the end it was just much easier to embrace the automatic services.

I'll put my bid in with about 15 to 20 seconds to go. That will beat human reaction time but not the computerized sniping services.

I feel your pain.

The reality is, when buying at auction, you are competing with others that may want the same item. everyone has a top price they are willing to pay. Sniping does not help much as others are ready with their top numbers (though some will come back and decide they are willing to pay more).

My advice: Place your absolute top bid that you are willing to pay or not be disappointed if you did not win at that price. Trying to game the system in the last few seconds may work sometimes, but will always leave you disappointed.

I couldn't agree more Brad. Put in the absolute highest price you would be willing to pay for an item a minute early. If you win, great. If not, then someone was willing to pay more than you so no harm no foul.

I do see the point of sniping though. You may be able to pick things up a bit cheaper depending on the situation. But you risk losing some things as well.

I feel your pain, Signatureseries. I will keep an eye out for more parts for you.

Thanks for the advice guys. I'll definitely try Gixen from now on with things such as this.



Sonny, thank you. I really appreciate it.


I wonder who would be good for rebuilding the spring barrel.... I've contacted Walt Sommers about it, and he seems fair, I've bought quite a lot of needles from him since I bought my VV-XVII.