The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Hello All! My name is Luke, I'm a Prop Master for Theater/Tv/Film and currently Warehouse Manager at a Prop Rental House in NJ. Being a Props guy, I collects lots of things(Telephones, Player Piano, Furniture, Lamps, ETC ETC ETC..) and I finally added a Victrola to my list. I've been wanting one for years and finally found a nice project. It's a VV-XI-A Serial Number 418803. I've got a few questions about it since I'd like to get it in playing shape again.

#1 issue is that it is missing it's motor. Do all Victrola motors interchange? Do I need one from a VV-XI? I know there are design changes between years/serial numbers but will any of them still work in my cabinet? I'm not going for a "Numbers Matching" Museum Quality restoration, just want to get it working and enjoy it!

Some pictures are below, I've taken a quick stock of parts and it looks like all that is missing is the bezel for the crank and the motor. Feel free to chime in with an observations/comments!


Matches the wood trim in my house pretty dead on!

Very common motor,usually a couple on ebay for fair prices, Bob Smock

Look for a motor that looks like the one in the oiling diagram. I'd go for a compete motor still mounted on the motor board so that you get all the parts that might be missing from yours. Swap the parts over to your motor board. You need the speed indicator parts as those appear to be missing from your pictures.

You'll need a crank as well, best if the motor comes with it, otherwise you'll be out another 20-30 bucks.

Good eye with the speed indicator parts, didn't notice that there wasn't a pointer or anything. I also have the little window for the speed indicator and a crank, forgot to post the picture. Are there different style of crank for different motors? I feel like I've seen a few different variations on cranks (Male/Female Thread or pined on) but it could be from seeing others at work.

You may be interested in this information.
For parts, you may want to contact this place.

Retrograde is sending you in the right direction. Call George V. He can answer your questions and should be able to provide you with everything you need at a reasonable price. The VV-XI was Victor's biggest seller, with more than 800,000 made, so parts are readily available.

And welcome to the Forum!

Clay

You may also be interested in this previous thread:

http://forum.talkingmachine.info/viewto ... otor+guide

To briefly answer your crank question, several of the earliest Victrola models shared parts with their external horn siblings -- motors (even motor boards sometimes), brakes, speed controls, taper tubes, reproducers, and cranks. These early Victrola cranks are tapered along the length of the rod they are formed from, terminate with a small metal sphere next to the handle, and are tapped female. As Victor phased out external horn models, Victrola parts became dedicated. The cranks became formed from a bent constant diameter rod with male threads. The handles became standard black rather than matching the cabinet finish. The length of the winding shaft and the finish of the metal on the crank was varied to suit the model of Victrola.

Well, as luck would have it a VV-80 came up on the local craigslist. Went to check it out and it was totally complete and working. Got it for a really good price, swapped the motor into mine, added the missing crank bezel and speed indicator from the 80 and now the XI is up and running.

Another question, is the VV-80 worth anything? It's serial no. 48053, first year and early enough in the run that it doesn't have record shelves. The cabinet is in decent shape, one bottom hinge for the storage door is missing. I know they were the bottom of the line model when they were new.

I'm new to Victrolas so I'm not sure if they're the kind of machine that there are so many of, one less isn't a sin or if it's a save them all kind of thing. As far as all my other collecting, I save everything even if it should get thrown out I may also just keep it in the dining room and stick a wine bottle rack in the bottom since there are no shelves in it anyways and it wouldn't damage anything(or stash player piano rolls in it).

Humm. Well, if it were me and it was in decent condition I would leave the VV-80 intact and pick up the missing bits for the XI from an XI that somebody was parting out--or pick up a parts machine XI with a lousy cabinet cheap. Originality is valued in the collector market.

While the values are probably similar for decent examples of both, maybe $200 to $300 in the current market, the 80s are much less common than the VV-XIs. About 185,000 of the 80s were made vs. more than 850,000 XI's.

George V, mentioned earlier, should be able to supply the missing hinge for not much.

Clay