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Subject: Question about Early "Nickeled" Diamond C Reproducers

I've been doing a lot of Edison phono repairs this year here in Florida. My small Edison Phonograph Repairs business is a bit up from last year's amount of repairs..

I had a strange one come in this past month...

A customer came to me and brought me an Edison Amberola 30 3rd Model to me for repair. The machine was 100% complete but needed a complete going over as it probably hadn't been run in 40-50 years or more... No biggie...as this is routine stuff for me...But A strange thing about the machine was that the Original Black Diamond C Reproducer was missing, but an earlier "Nickeled" Diamond C from an Amberola 30/50/75 1st Model had been put in its place.

Anyway, Getting to the point, It looked like someone had "Hot Rodded" this reproducer but I was not 100% sure as I did not completely disassemble it. What I could see was that instead of the usual "rope and eyelet" coming from the top of the Diaphragm that goes into the hook of the Stylus Cross, This one had a "C" piece of steel wire like an early "Model C 2-Minute Reproducer" would have.

Has anyone ever seen this in an Early "Nickeled" 1st Model Diamond C Reproducer with a "C" type steel wire connector instead of the usual Rope and eyelet coming from the Diaphragm??? I sure haven't until now...

I don't know what to make of it since it was so well done. It Looks Original... but I'm assuming it's someone's handiwork.

Any ideas???


The amazing thing of it all was that the Reproducer sounded amazingly loud.....and I'm more than sure that it's gaskets were shot as well though which was interesting. It put out fantastic sound with this solid "C" wire connector...fabricated or not.

)

Tony K.

Edison Collector/Restorer

NEFaurora wrote:What I could see was that instead of the usual "rope and eyelet" coming from the top of the Diaphragm that goes into the hook of the Stylus Cross, This one had a "C" piece of steel wire like an early "Model C 2-Minute Reproducer" would have.

All of the Diamond C reproducers I've ever seen including all of those in my own collection have the fiber diaphragm-to-stylus bar link with metal eyelet. Let's see a picture of this diaphragm if possible. It would obviously need an eyelet fixed to the center of the diaphragm (as with the earlier sapphire C reproducers) so one might reasonably presume that the original fiber link broke and someone glued an eyelet to the diaphragm and made up a wire link instead.

So then...why were the old original gaskets never touched? Difficult to know that. Perhaps because new reproducer gaskets were not available to the person who made the replacement link. It would be interesting to see the diaphragm.

Doug

We'll never know.... I repaired the machine and gave it back to the customer...

I'll just accept that it was a "Hot Rodded" Custom "C" link until I hear or see otherwise.... I've worked on other Early Diamond "C" Nickeled Reproducers and they all had the typical "rope and eyelet" Diaphragm connectors going to the Stylus Crosshook...just like any other Diamond "C" Reproducer..

)

Tony K.

Edison Collector/Restorer