The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

A few pictures of a Victor 4, that has been well loved in the past, that I picked up last fall. As you can see the bright work has been polished away along with the pin striping. The wood has darkened and the finish crazed but that is all fine with me as I have wanted an outside horn machine. I found it at work in a storage room. I tracked down the owner and found out his wife wanted it out of the house so he brought it to work. We worked out a price $0 and I took it home and started to look more at what was needed. It actually went to the farm house for storage as there is no room in my house. My aunt was up visiting for an open house we were having at the farm that day and told me to put it in her car trunk as she also wanted an outside horn machine. Things that were missing or I thought were missing were the clamp and thumb screw to hold the horn on. I found the thumb screw in the tone arm. Wrong reproducer and the spring barrels were missing. All of that is taken care of now and it is now residing at my mother's house with a black cloth stuffed down to horn because she says it is to loud even with a soft needle.

Very nice and welcome. Now you just need some room, like the rest of us.

Outstanding! That is one on my list.. I have the mahogany horn just need that machine. Great find!

That is a really nice example. You mention some flaws, but really it's in very good condition and just how I like to find them.

That's a very nice looking talking machine!
Thought you might like to see the temple to music that it was sold from.
Just imagine stepping into this palace and being overwhelmed by the beauty!
James.

Congratulation on your Victor IV. It is quite desirable and not too common. If you consider Victor models I through VI and arrange them from most to least common, they are:

Victor II
Victor III
Victor I
Victor V
Victor IV
Victor VI

Jerry B.

I have seen that picture of Sol. Blooms before. The story of how the machine got from New York to Utah would be interesting. A bigger house would be nice because I have quite a few things at my mother's house being used as decorations. It is also better over there as there is not a 5 and a 7 year old there to play with it. I have always been interested in old stuff. In fifth grade there was a man that brought an Edison cylinder machine and a couple of disc machines to my school. After that I went home and built a disc machine. Very crude but it worked. I wish I had a couple of pictures of it, but I could rebuild one as I remember it quite well. No spring motor, you just had to crank the crank at the right speed to get things to sound right. The horn was made out of a sheet of 8.5x11 paper rolled into a cone.