The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Here is a tin foil that looks VERY old and incomplete.Based on the fact that all the bids were cancelled,I would have to think that the seller was made a great offer.I just hope that the buyer knew that it is a 1977 English made fantasy piece........attachment=0]!ByJV01gCWk~$(KGrHqQOKi!Ew0mBKqoOBMQhLruULw~~_3.jpg[/attachment]

As Rene had pointed out in his invaluable book "Tinfoil Phonographs" this was built by the late English electronics engineer Goodwin Ive, past vice-president of CLPGS in 1977. Ca. 100 were produced for the modest purchase price of about 80 UK pounds.

One clever British talking machine dealer quickly reacted to the obvious demand of some phonographists willing to sacrifice more than 1000$:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... 500wt_1114

At least the seller didn't claim it to be an original in the auction listing, though he didn't call it a replica either.

Two years ago there was a real travesty committed with another Goodwin Ive tinfoil:



Someone mounted the castings to a different base, aged everything, added a flywheel incongruously positioned beside the crank, and loaded it up with dirt to look like it just came from an attic.

This first showed up on the website of a dealer of scientific antiques in England. After it was categorically exposed as a fraud, he turned around and put it on eBay and described it as having been made by the London Stereoscopic Company, even though it looks nothing like any genuine LSC tinfoil. eBay ignored all the reports it received about this fraud and the machine sold. I really regret that I can't remember the price, and I can't find my notes. In any event, the buyer quite fortunately finally did some research and found discussions about the auction posted on the Internet and backed out of the sale before getting burned.

It turns out that the seller had spent 10 months in prison in 2002 after stealing an Enigma machine from a museum and selling it to a collector.