The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Anyone here own a VV-XVI with the serial number 158183 in weathered oak? I have a shipping slip for the machine and it came with a gunmetal oak XVI I bought, but it just isn't my machine's. I wanna try to find the current owner and let them have their slip back, to compliment their machine I guess.

Nice gesture and I hope it works.

Jerry B.

Liam,

This is a wonderful exercise! So often any record of previous ownership is lost. If the machine still exists I’m sure the current owner would be delighted to see it. For that matter the forum members might like to see it as well, I know I would! Will you post it here?

As a suggestion I would try to reach Paul Edie of the Victor-Victrola.com website. Paul has been collecting Victor machine data for more than 20 years and very well may have a record of VV-XVI with the serial number 158183.

Mark

I've emailed the owner of the Victrola database a while ago and still have yet to get a response. I tried attaching photos to the initial post but for some reason the forum was being weird and wouldn't let them upload from my drive. I'll try again with this reply.

XVI s/n 158183 has not yet been logged into the survival database; however, I did enter the fact that the shipping slip has been found, and that the machine was Weathered Oak. Perhaps it will show-up one day. As of today more than 5,000 surviving XVI's have been logged.

Sorry I missed your earlier request for information. If you need to contact me with a question it's best to use my email listed on the site: [email protected]. If you simply enter the serial number via the 'form submission', the data is automatically dumped into the database, providing that all the information which is submitted conforms to the correct model features.

With 180+ entries being submitted daily, I rarely have enough time to review all the questions or comments that might be included. I try to check as many as I can.

Thanks!

Paul Edie

180 entries daily! That is crazy. How many in the data base total?

Skihawx wrote: Mon Sep 12, 2022 8:17 pm 180 entries daily! That is crazy. How many in the data base total?

WOW. I was wondering the same thing. I'm surprised so many have survived the last 100 years or so.

We surpassed 200,000 unique entries last December. The database was started in the late 1970's, and started-off listing models/features/ finishes and serial numbers based on what I (and friends) found at shows and swap meets. The advent of Ebay and Craigslist made the task easier, and now the website provides an immense amount of data from Victors and Victrolas all over the world. Only pre-1929 products from The Victor Talking Machine company are logged. I hope to make this database accessible via the website in the coming years. Thx. Paul Edie