Victrola XVI Moorish Marquetry found

[walser]

Hi all,

I've been asked to help on the restoration of one of the 12 ever made Victrola XVI in Moorish marquetry finish. It was found in Algeria and now is in Spain been restored and will be auctioned soon.

I ask your help to try to decipher some unsolved mysteries of this fascinating machine.

First, some general pictures of how it is now after a deep cleaning and some very small repairs of the marquetry:

Now comes the mysteries. If you compare it with one of the 2 other (AFAIK) machines that exist nowadays, it has some differences:

See for reference the other machine on this link: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4459
As you can see, the newly found machines has no needle cups nor identifying plate and there's no signals of screws or nails holes.

Another very very obvious difference is that this one has an electric motor. I have inspected inside and out the machine and it has not any trace of hole for a crank, nor holes for the spring motor so I can confirm that this machine never had a spring motor.

On the other hand, I have very little knowledge about identifying electric motor brands and, so far, I've never seen this electric motor on a Victrola.
The speed regulator is on top of the motor and there are no other holes that could indicate that it had a different electric motor before.

The only thing that I don't find normal is that this board has been sawn and removed in a not very professional way (but maybe it was the only possible way to do it without breaking apart all the cabinet):

Do you recognize this motor?

It also strikes me that there's no holes in the back of the cabinet to dissipate the heat as other Electrolas but this might be normal because this motor does not have the usual resistors to adapt it to different voltages.

And last, there is a hole for a screw that can be seen in all models of Victrola XVI but, in this case, I cannot figure out what it can be used for. It is a screw that is between the tonearm and spindle:

What does that screw is used for?

Thank you vey much in advance for your help!

Pedro Martínez
www.pedrofono.es

[JerryVan]

Kind of looks as if someone had an unused, undrilled cabinet and fitted it with the motor arrangement we now see. I believe that, just for starters, the plain motor board, made of uninteresting wood, was not part of the original machine. Still, extremely remarkable!!!!

[walser]

The motorboard, is solid mahogany as all the moldings of the cabinet.

[Roaring20s]

Love at first sight!
Absolutely Stunning.
The finest looking Victrola I have ever seen.

James.

[Inigo]

I would say... Don't forget about the services these big companies offered, among these were custom made machines, for wealthy people. So anything is possible. We'll never know if this was subjected to any specification, as the clients could ask for whatever they wanted! These are unique pieces, and maybe the 12 units produced were somewhat different between them.
This is a one of a kind machine, and you're very fortunate to have to treat one of these.

[JerryVan]

The motorboard, is solid mahogany as all the moldings of the cabinet.

To be clear, I meant this board. Which I would expect to be as heavily inlaid as everything else.

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[gramophone-georg]

The motorboard, is solid mahogany as all the moldings of the cabinet.

To be clear, I meant this board. Which I would expect to be as heavily inlaid as everything else.

Capture.PNG

Hard to tell for certain, but the motor board on this one looks like it might be devoid of inlay as well

[drh]

Curious that the spindle isn't even close to centered in its hole in the motorboard.

[Curt A]

The one thing about the motorboard that makes me wonder is that the spindle is not centered with the spindle hole. I doubt that the Victor factory would have missed this.

Obviously these cabinets were custom made in a country that was accomplished in this style of marquetry, not in the US, and then shipped to the Victor factory for completion. The Ruege factory in Switzerland makes music box movements and installs them into beautiful cabinets with inlays done in Italy. Maybe this was an extra cabinet which was retrofitted with a locally made motor and hardware from the country of origin.

The motor is unlike any that I have seen... That said, what do I know?

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[Duchesne]

Never seen Syrian marquetry art-casing done on a Victrola before. And now I have. My guess is the motor is retro-fitted and a permanent stylus probably incorporated a tone arm that wasn't traditionally Victor. That might explain in part, why the needle cups aren't present and the marquetry veneer applied over the original wood (or some such). I have a pair of games tables done in that style from a vendor on eBay from the ealrly-2010's. Caution with the marquetry: keep it out of sunlight and moisture. Although assembly may have changed since yours was art cased, the marquetry, I was told comes designed into a block of wood, then sliced extremely thin and stuck on in sheets. To me, that doesn't sound right but it's what I was told. I haven't bothered to research that. None-the-less, these kinds of pieces are rare in the western worlds.