The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Does anyone recognise this soundbox and lid transfer, or know who manufactured the machine?
I thought of Ressellbell, but their transfer showed their name across an image of a bell.

epigramophone wrote: Sun Feb 27, 2022 12:04 pm Does anyone recognise this soundbox and lid transfer, or know who manufactured the machine?
I thought of Ressellbell, but their transfer showed their name across an image of a bell.

Here is a similar model:

https://www.easyliveauction.com/catalog ... g-lot-526/

Interesting to see that the right hand side of the record compartment is blocked off. Perhaps it has a saxophone horn.

Here's the same machine from the Saleroom link above, now for sale on Ebay:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Antique-R-B- ... 635-2958-0

Does anyone else find this all a bit sad and predictable? It seems there's an awful lot of stuff being sold on Ebay which has just recently been sold on the Saleroom.

Clearly a lot of people have too much time and not enough imagination. It also is a damning indictment of the antique trade and UK auctioneers in general. They are doing their vendors a great disservice with the way they operate. It is obvious that these items are being sold for a fraction of their true value to people who are solely interested in turning a quick profit. I'm not against profit per se but clearly the auctioneers are effectively handing the money to the buyers, not the sellers as they ought to be, if the auction buyers can sell on another (better?) auction site. It'd be like an estate agent valuing and selling your house for a price which allows a buyer to flip it quickly with profit by using a different agent.

Anyway, rant over, it's clear to me there is a gap in the market being exploited whilst the original vendors are getting sc***ed over.

Maybe it's high time the BBC removed all its crap antique programs from the schedules as they are totally misleading and out of date. The trade is nothing like that shown where a) anything can be bought from a shop with high discount and b) the auctioneers actually know what they're talking about.

Steve wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 4:00 am

Maybe it's high time the BBC removed all its crap antique programs from the schedules as they are totally misleading and out of date. The trade is nothing like that shown where a) anything can be bought from a shop with high discount and b) the auctioneers actually know what they're talking about.

Very true! It's patently obvious that these programmes are made purely for entertainment. If you walked into an antique centre, picked up an item priced at £250, and offered £150, your offer would not immediately be accepted, as it is on these programmes, you would more than likely be told to "go forth and multiply", to put it politely!

Barry

That's very true, Barry, but you have to question, pure "entertainment" or not, how can it be that irrespective of how cheaply the contestants "buy" the goods from shops in the programs, that they invariably fail to make even the slightest profit at auction the majority of the time?

Steve wrote: Mon Feb 28, 2022 8:35 am That's very true, Barry, but you have to question, pure "entertainment" or not, how can it be that irrespective of how cheaply the contestants "buy" the goods from shops in the programs, that they invariably fail to make even the slightest profit at auction the majority of the time?

When you see some of the junk these "experts" buy, I'm not surprised they make little or no profit. It's a very small minority of punters who want old stepladders, rusty tin baths or cheap and nasty cabinet gramophones. The whole idea of these programmes is wrong. I was an antiques dealer for years, and found out very early on that one doesn't buy items from dealers and then auction them, it only works the other way round, buy at auction and then put them up for sale to dealers.

Barry

The ridiculous, unrealistic "discounts" they get from the dealers are totally fake - I know the owner of an antique centre who had one of these shows filming and they were paid the full asking price anyway off camera but it makes ordinary punters think they can get these "prices". The whole point is that you are buying at retail and selling back to the trade, hence the losses event with the fake purchase prices.