The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I went to look at a group of Diamond Disc records today. I passed on the lot, but the owner had 2 machines, one of which was an A250 with "louvers", i.e., the openings on the sides like the Amberola cabinet models have. The serial number was in the 4000 range, which I though was fairly high for a machine with louvers. The machine is not currently for sale, but I expressed interest.

Does anyone know approximately when/what serial number the louvers were discontinued on the A250?

I doubt that the early A 250s all had louvers but none of the later examples did. It's more probable that as Amberola 1B sales trailed off, those cabinets inventoried for them were redirected to A 250 production, especially during periods of higher production (e.g.: the weeks leading up to Christmas).

George P.

I've seen a couple of those diamond disk machines with the louvers and when I looked at the underside of the lid, you could see where the Amberola decal was either covered or removed. I didn't look inside the cabinet, but I would guess there was evidence of the change there as well. One of them was a Union a long time ago and what caught my eye was a huge sag in the varnish on the underside of the lid! It was done at the factory, and made me feel a lot better about some of my refinish jobs. That was when I saw what they were trying to cover up. On that one it looked like they just tried to hide the decal with colored varnish. Edison sure hated to waste anything, that's for sure. Take care now, Earl.

I own a Diamond Disc with a covered up/defaced Amberola decal, but it has a B250 motor, so it's definitely later than the A250.

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I didn't notice any trace of an Amberola decal on the machine I looked at today, but I also didn't look at it all that closely.