The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Ever get the chance to document the original owner and residence of a particular machine?
Sometimes we are lucky to get this information. Do you ever look at an old house and wonder
what kind of phonograph they might have had?? Here is a the front of a beautiful residence?
Care to guess what machine was delivered to this residence?

A rare treasure as could be found in King Solomon's mines, should they ever be found!

I dont know about the house above, but I do know the one below is getting an HMV 109 next week because Im doing up for my mate who lives there.

Skihawx wrote:Ever get the chance to document the original owner and residence of a particular machine?
Sometimes we are lucky to get this information. Do you ever look at an old house and wonder
what kind of phonograph they might have had?? Here is a the front of a beautiful residence?
Care to guess what machine was delivered to this residence?

A VV-XVI, perhaps with a special finish?

Thirty years ago I purchased a pair of Orthophonic Victrola Granada machines with sequential serial numbers (3128 & 3129, as I recall) which came out of a very large, elaborate mid-1920's Tudor home in Coldwater Michigan. The two machines were located in the same room, on either side of a wide doorway. The daughter of the original owner was breaking up her parent's home. When I asked her why the pair of cheaper machines rather than a single large phonograph. She said that her mother decorated the house, and insisted on a pair of identical "tables" on either side of the doorway, and so that's what her father purchased.

The owners of our big house purchased a new VV-XIV in 1917, which machine we acquired in 1992. The little Craftsman home that I'm currently restoring once contained an oak VV-X, style B. That machine is in the possession of the great-granddaughter of the man who built the home in 1912.

Skihawx wrote:Ever get the chance to document the original owner and residence of a particular machine?
Sometimes we are lucky to get this information. Do you ever look at an old house and wonder
what kind of phonograph they might have had?? Here is a the front of a beautiful residence?
Care to guess what machine was delivered to this residence?

is this just seeking speculation or do you actually know what was delivered there? where is that house, by the way?

Bethlehem, PA
Johnston Mansion


http://bethlehembuildings.blogspot.com/

Andersun wrote:Bethlehem, PA
Johnston Mansion


http://bethlehembuildings.blogspot.com/

ugh... I hate reading stories like that. often enough when people bequeath properties and houses like that to the public, via the local government, those local boards, rather than resell what they can't manage on their own, instead hold onto them, fail to properly maintain a fund to care for them and ultimately allow them to self-demolish through neglect to the point where their sad physical states come only to provide justification for the bulldozers. really reprehensible.

brianu wrote:
is this just seeking speculation or do you actually know what was delivered there? where is that house, by the way?

I bought the machine a few months ago. The person I bought it from purchased it from the daughter
of Johnston back in the early to mid 1970's.

Here is a picture of the back of the house.

I'll get some pictures of the machine this weekend..

Not a XVI but is a Victor...

Uncle Vanya wrote:
Thirty years ago I purchased a pair of Orthophonic Victrola Granada machines with sequential serial numbers (3128 & 3129, as I recall) which came out of a very large, elaborate mid-1920's Tudor home in Coldwater Michigan. The two machines were located in the same room, on either side of a wide doorway. The daughter of the original owner was breaking up her parent's home. When I asked her why the pair of cheaper machines rather than a single large phonograph. She said that her mother decorated the house, and insisted on a pair of identical "tables" on either side of the doorway, and so that's what her father purchased.

Two identical machines in the same room! Did it look like one was more used than the other? That is pretty interesting. Also great that you were able to speak with the daughter to understand.

The Johnston house is in my neck of the woods (Lehigh Valley), and is a good example of why I have said here, and elsewhere, that we live in a museum here in e. PA. It's sad to think that the forces of "progress" may prevail in this instance, as they have so often, and yet another part of our heritage will be destroyed. For shame!