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I have an early (1912) VV-VI with 10" platter that it seems someone did some mods to the tonearm mount on. Can someone provide pictures of the correct tonearm and bracket assemblies for this early VV-VI?

Thanks

Any chance of some good photos? It might help. Jerry B.

Here you go

Thank you for the images. I've been unable to find clear images of the early 10" VV-VI. Here are some I took of this tonearm

Your early VV-VI would not have had the bracket over to top of the tone arm and it would have had an Exhibition reproducer. It looks like someone may have ground the elbow to accept a later tone arm and upper bracket part.

Here are a couple more pics of an early VV-VI.

Thanks for all the pictures. Indeed the elbow was broken and ground there at the top. Would a later tonearm have had the crossbar support for the internal support rod? Both the elbow and tonearm have it. To me it looks like it may be the correct tonearm and elbow but someone decided to add the external support from a later arm for whatever reason?

Also does anyone know when they added the internal lid supports? This one doesn't have one. The horn is open topped and made of wood.

Here's an image of the machine. I do have a crank for it but it's not the flat crank...it's a round shaft crank. It does fit the machine and I thin it's a nice looking machine.

The horn is correct to be open topped. The earliest tabletop Victrolas had open-topped wooden horns and if the motor is not well-cared-for the squeaky governor & noisy gears will be amplified by the horn and broadcast along with the music! (Our local museum has a 1912 IX that did this...I ended up getting to play conservator for a day and fix the Victrola.)

My guess is, yours got dropped or something hit the top of it, causing it to break. Someone repaired it with the bracket from a regular Victrola fitted to the old tonearm (which looks suspiciously like something from an open-horn machine, but that's fine for this era; the parts look a lot alike when they are this early.)

There is a chance someone could repair your bracket. Question--does anyone know if these early VV-VIs use ball bearings or just a layer of grease as a seal? You might need a new pivot pin.

The No. 2 Reproducer is possibly a legitimate upgrade, or a replacement if the original Exhibition went missing. It possibly could have been scavenged for parts to fix an early horn-model Victor Talking Machine. If rebuilt it should sound very good.


Basically, those Victrolas are so simple and the parts were used to re-do so many horn machines that I'm surprised any of them have survived to the present day. Nice to see yours out and around! Someone somewhere has got you a crank if you want a flat crank...a reproduction would do, but a round crank will look all right. Sometimes not every machine can be factory correct. But then again, as in the case of yours, it can look fine even if it isn't.

I've managed to aquire another tone arm bracket that looks identical to the other pictures, including the spider on the inside for the pivot pin. It's paint is in pretty good shape.

Does any body have a suggestion on where to get a pivot pin assembly? Some photos of the pin assembly show a short barrel shaped piece that slides into the tone arm bracket throat?

Thanks for all the help!

Nice to see so many great photos. I have an early VV VI and it had an old Victor brake I had never seen before. Thursday I will be getting another VI but a later one from 1917 and it is so different. I will have to repair the brake pad in motor and put on proper sound box but it looks okay and I am trading an old little tube radio for it. I paid nothing for the radio so I think a good trade for me. Neil