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This machine will be auctionned tomorrow and I just don't know anything about it. Any idea?
Thanks and Merry Christmas and happy new year to all members!
ps: anyway, I will not bid (incomplete, too big and far away!)

where is it for sale ? someone might be interested

Sure! it's in France close to Orleans and it's a live auction (https://www.interencheres.com/meubles-o ... 88847.html)
But I still don't know what it is!!! Any ?

As the auction is in France my first thought is that this is likely to be French, but most French phonographs are small lightweight machines. The only large size French phonographs I know of were made by Edouard Cannevel of Le Phonographe Francais.
Some of his machines were sold by Henri Lioret.

You can check the site graphonogram.com, it has three pages of old gramophone and phonograph catalogues from France, Germany and elsewhere. It has hundreds of catalogues, and the site is French.
It's like finding the needle in the hay, but who knows.. maybe you'll find it! It hasn't, though, any catalogue to the name Cannevel nor Edouard Cannevel...

epigramophone wrote: Wed Dec 15, 2021 1:34 pm As the auction is in France my first thought is that this is likely to be French, but most French phonographs are small lightweight machines. The only large size French phonographs I know of were made by Edouard Cannevel of Le Phonographe Francais.
Some of his machines were sold by Henri Lioret.

Roger, Pathé made some of the largest phonographs ever made, one of them being the Céleste, see

(Double-click the video above or click this link to go to the video on YouTube.)

. The one on the photo is not it but could be some obscure variation.

I know Pathé was very creative but I'm pretty sure this is not a Pathé machine and I don't think either that it's a French one.
For the time being, I would rather call it just a "conversation piece"!

By now I've been watching the first 100 catalogues or so at the gramophonogram website, out of 414 included there, and I've only find one Pathé model that resembled that one, but I couldn't see that black cast thick curved bridge that crosses over the pulley. To me that is the characteristic or strange or distinctive feature to look after. I haven't ever seen that curved bridge in any phonograph...

This phonograph was sold in France by La Fauvette, society founded by Lucien Vivès in Paris, 5, Bd Poissonnière.
The mechanism was probably imported from Germany and built by the Excelsior Werke in Cologne (EWC). The mahogany box was built by the company Laurent & Salomon.
Lucien Vivès built phonographs and recorded very large cylinders, as you can see on my website www.phonorama.fr

The legendary collector Jean-Paul Agnard has an almost identical one on his excellent website (base plate may be slightly different)

http://www3.sympatico.ca/jean-paul.agna ... uvette.htm

Looks like a great machine. There are share certificates for this company "Societe anonyme francaise de phonographes LA FAUVETTE" so it must have been quite large, though I have never heard of it.