The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Is there a good way to tell the difference between an original Exhibition long throat and a modified tapered arm Exhibition? Thanks!

I believe an original will have an alignment pin on the back plate (often broken off). Caveat, the back plate can easily be swapped.

round hole in the needle chuck.

The backplates do have an alignment pin, although they are sometimes found to be missing or broken. From the front, both the long throat and tonearm types look alike but are completely different when viewed from the rear. It is my understanding that repro backplates have been made and tonearm style backplates have been modified into long throats, so beware. Perhaps someone who owns both types could post some detailed photos as a guide.
BTW: a long throat with a triangular needle chuck could have been modified by the factory 100 years ago. Victor offered this service for owners of round chuck Exhibitions after they began selling their own fiber needles.

Jim

Another clue--If the faked long throat Exhibition was made using the back plate of a later Exhibition, you can still find the holes that would normally connect to the rubber mount. I have one such reproducer that the holes were filled in with black putty. No big deal since I bought the machine knowing that the reproducer was not original.

Steve

Always thought that a real orginal long throats also had a serial number stamped along the back edge??

I don't have anything to compare at this time.

Blizz

Steve, There is an example of such a faked long throat on Ebay currently. It didn't look correct to me but I had to study it for a while to realize what they did. It seems to me that if you filled the holes with solder before finishing the machine work, you could make them invisible. The only giveaway would be the serial number.

Jim

http://www.ebay.com/itm/370612847289?ss ... 1423.l2649