The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

What are we looking at here?

https://www.ebay.fr/itm/266155263908?mk ... olid=10050

A French tinfoil made by D. Vital in 1879. https://www.edisontinfoil.com/vital.htm

Well, that seems like quite some remarkable machine then

Anybody laying guesses on the closing price yet?

Unfortunately, can't bid from USA and no shipping to USA. I contacted the seller to see if he would make an exception. No luck.

20 bids, 1711 euros, 15 hours to go.

Or you can get ripped off on other sales websites. People stealing listings is a real pain!

A bit less than $3500 $US. This strikes me as rather cheap if this is only the fifth example known and that it dates from the earliest period of recorded sound. I recall there was an early hand-crank disk machine that surfaced in Florida sometime before the pandemic. It sold on eBay for $60k+, if I recall correctly.

The seller blew it by refusing to ship to the US. That was an incredible steal.