The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Wow! This oak C250, though very nice looking, went for a surprisingly high price. Lots of bids, too. Any thoughts beyond bidder frenzy?
The link:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... MEWAX%3AIT

Bob

Bob,

I remember when the C-250 in OAK would pull a $1600 price. Then, later on in the 1990's it would pull down to $900, and now.........$375 I've seen them sell for at Stanton's...usually in a gallery containing 3-4 of them.

-W

At the other end of the spectrum, there was this C-19 in oak............

http://cgi.ebay.com/Edison-Disk-Phonogr ... 1e619d6754

I don't think 900 for a nice one in oak is all that unreasonable, it might be high relative to the cost of one you could possibly find elsewhere (particularly in a market like this when people need money and are more desperate to sell things)... but that can really be said for just about any machine - something typically sells for 300 or 400 and someone finds one for 50 bucks at a yard sale and, at least for some people, that anomaly automatically because the new normal price and anything more is just too much.

the number of bids though seems really high, although most of them seem to be from two bidders, neither of whom won, and one with no feedback.

I would think $900 is rather high but comparing it with a C19 isn't really valid in my mind either. The expensive machine is a C250, much less common, looks to be all original right down to the grille cloth and the key is included. That said, however, I would expect the C19 to bring more than it did even with the couch upholstery grille cloth. Does the C19 look refinished to anyone else? Isn't the wood behind the fancy trim just below the lid supposed to be dark like on the mahogany ones?

Jim

The C250 IMO seems to be all original, and worth the price. I learned from an old time collector to pay a little more for condition. He said" Always remember, Condition, Condition, Condition is paramount." There are times that I will pay a little extra for a truly superb, mint machine.
Harvey Kravitz

phonojim wrote:I would think $900 is rather high but comparing it with a C19 isn't really valid in my mind either. The expensive machine is a C250, much less common, looks to be all original right down to the grille cloth and the key is included. That said, however, I would expect the C19 to bring more than it did even with the couch upholstery grille cloth. Does the C19 look refinished to anyone else? Isn't the wood behind the fancy trim just below the lid supposed to be dark like on the mahogany ones?

Jim

The C-19 was merely the C-250 re-badged in 1919, with the only real change being the record storage. Finding a C-19 in oak is much harder than finding the C-250 in oak, which was the more common wood used.
The trim below the lid correctly matches the rest of the machine and if it was refinished, they missed the most glaring issue on the lid, ie; the water stains.....................

Bill

It's a little difficult to be sure from the photos, but it looks like this eBay unit has the Duncan electric stop feature which is not all that common. You can just make out what appears to be a black wire at the back of the reproducer, and what appears to be the wire conduit tubing on the underside of the tonearm. Maybe somebody REALLY wanted that feature. Or, rather, at least two people did.

Bill,

I wasn't sure if the trim on the oak ones had the dark background like my mahogany C19. I wasn't aware that oak C19s are more rare than oak C250s. Do you have a source for this info, or is it based on your observations?

Jim

I'm wondering if another reason this machine sold so high is because of the seller's willingness to crate and ship it. So many floor model and console machines don't get any bids on ebay because they must be picked up in person in po-dunk middle of nowhere.