The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Did anyone else see tonight's episode of American Restoration?

Rick, the fellow who ruined a nice original Atwater Kent Model 37 "Modernistic" a few weeks ago undertook the restoration of a somewhat tatty Edison C-19 in mahogany. The charge was $4,500.00. For this price they cleaned the motor, though they didn't appear to have dis-assembled it. The cabinet had some veneer repair, and was entirely stripped, stained a brilliant orange-red, and coated with poly slop. Brilliant green silk grille cloth and high-polished gold plated metalwork completed the job. The only really good part of the original machine was the pristine turntable felt, which was of course discarded so that the entire turntable could be brightly gold plated!

That $4500 charge really seemed excessive. I thought maybe Rick said "4-to-5-hundred", but replaying the scene, it was definitely $4500. The owner might have been fleeced. What would a normal C-19 be worth, with a proper restoration?

MIGHT I think we can eliminate the might.

This show turns my stomach.

penman wrote:This show turns my stomach.

Mine too.

Sean

$4500????? I'm not an Edison kind of person, but $4500 is an obscene price for a C-19 in original pristine condition, if I'm not mistaken. But to pay that much for lousey restoration?

I saw him do similar work on a relatively cheap external horn machine (may have been a Standard). He did a really nice job with the horn, I'll give him credit for that, but the case itself, it was pretty much a hack job. And then there was the price. I vaguely recall it being in the neighborhood of $1k. All I could think was that the machine wasn't worth that much to begin with, and he's just fleecing the poor guy. But the coustomer at some level has a responsbility to know what he's getting into.

I'll give him some credit, some of the work he does turns out beautiful...amazingly so (there is an online episode where he restores a 1913 meat slicer, and the final product is stunning). However, I think to call what he does, "restoration" is not accurate. When your first impulse is to strip everything down to bare metal/wood, what you are doing is not restoration. Even more so, when you have no interest in putting back a historically accurate finish, once you have stripped everything.

He re-creates vanity pieces to feed a person's sense of nostolgia, and look pretty in their man-cave. When no consideration at all is given to historic accuracy, then I would hardly consider it restoration. He's better than the middle aged house wives who slap on green and white paint, and call it "antiqued" or "shabby-chic" but only by a matter degree.

A lot of people who bring pieces into that shop have some kind of emotional attachment- sometimes if it's a family piece money is no object.

American Restoration is definitely in bed with Pawn Stars, and I think they've got some relationship with American Pickers. (I used to enjoy that show but lately the guys play straight to the audience)

I always found it strange that on both of the above mentioned shows that the person bringing the item in does not know what it is going to cost until he returns to pick up the final item, and, SURPRISE, they are SO happy with the result that they don't even flinch. They are just marketing their niche in the market to those that don't know better. It's the American way......

In reality, it is no different than believing a product review in a periodical that accepts advertizing dollars from the manufacturer of the item they are reviewing.... Caveat Emptor

tomwil wrote: What would a normal C-19 be worth, with a proper restoration?

C-19 aren't all that rare. I would think you could pick up a nice one for under $1,000.

Clay

I sold a very nice C250 in oak at Union for $300. I had it priced at $400 Friday and Saturday and sold it on Sunday morning. In my opinion a C250 is worth a little more than a C19 and oak is more unusual than mahogany. Jerry Blais

I just saw the episode. For $4500 I would rather have a Berliner or a Pooley flat top, thank-you.