Things I Collect

Weekends are a wonderful time. This past weekend was a long weekend for me as I also took Friday off work as PTO, which made it extra special. It was busy! Friday was spent wandering Main Street and finding some gifts at local shops; Saturday was spent in large part very similarly, with visiting craft shows, Christmas events, and more craft shows. Today - Sunday - I took one of my boys to a birthday party at the mall and spent a few hours wandering the mall. I did end up buying a few more gifts there, too, and I think I might be done now.

And I'm glad to finally get to sit down. It's getting late in the evening and @galenkp had a great idea for people to share things they collect.

Well.

Over the course of the last couple of years I've accrued a few phonographs. The term "phonograph" may sound archaic, as the newer, more modern term is either "record player" or "turntable," but in my case the more archaic term is correct; the phonographs that I collect are all antique with the vast majority of them being wind-up spring powered, and not electric.

This is my Victrola VV-XIV. The proper way to pronounce this is "Victrola the Fourteenth." It is not a "Victor the Fourteenth." The "Victor" phonographs have external horns. When the Victor Talking Machine Company internalised the horns to make them look more like furniture and less like a machine they renamed their phonographs to "Victrola."

Note the keys that are in the phonograph. The top key locks access to the turntable. The bottom key locks access to the storage area where records are kept. Those Victor keys - with the V in them - are collectors items in and of themselves.

A quick sidebar about Victor Talking Machine Company Serial Numbers:

Serial Label	Identification
V 123456	A single "V" denotes a "Victor" phonograph with an external horn
VV XIV	A double "VV" denotes a "Victrola" phonograph with an internal horn
VV 210	Victor did away with Roman numerals and used Arabic numerals. These are later machines.
VE 123456	A "VE" denotes a Victrola with an electric, non spring, powered motor to spin the turntable (amplification was still not electric)
Granada	A higher end Victrola with multiple improvements.

Sitting beside the VV-XIV is my VE 8-4. The VE 8-4 has an electric motor to spin the turntable (it does not need to be wound) and is also orthophonic. "Orthophonic" is a fancy term used to denote "better sound with more bass," and the sound really is a night and day difference. Orthophonic phonographs ushered in the era of Big Band music. Orthophonic music could be recorded electrically, meaning the ability to amplify sound during the recording process could be done electrically, although the playback itself was still limited to acoustic amplification.

I can assure you, this phonograph sounds fantastic. The barren looking area beside the turntable was used to store the next record to be played.

This phonograph - the Granada - was a precursor to the 8-4. The Granada is widely known to have saved the Victor Talking Machine Company from insolvancy. It was their first Orthophonic phonograph and really breathed new life into the company and the industry as a whole.

This particular Granada is not electric - it is a wind up phonograph with four springs driving the motor. It is worth repeating that until the 1930's, phonographs did not have the ability to amplify sound electrically, so this Granada, despite being "manual," sounded exactly the same as the VE 8-4 above.

(And yes, I am also infatuated with Nipper, the "RCA/His Masters Voice" dog. And Snoopy.)

This is a fun little phonograph. This is a "Standard Talking Machine" Model E. This particular phonograph is from before 1910. It has a single spring motor; completely wound it can play one song, then will need to be rewound. These records were recorded in the same way as Victor, Columbia, and Brunswick records, but the spindle that holds the record in place is of a different size. It is really like the difference between a 33 1/3 rpm record spindle and 45 rpm record spindle. If a Standard record were placed just right on a Victrola it could be played, but a Victor record would not fit on this one at all. I have played one of these records on my Three Tune Tuesday livestream.

This is a Brunswick. This is also a custom Brunswick with no serial number on it.

Brunswick, at the time, was primarily a cabinetry company, and it fit well within their wheel house, so to speak, to build phonograph cabinets. Once they started doing that they entered the music business entirely. I have a number of Brunswick records.

This phonograph has some interesting features.

1. It has an electric motor to spin the turntable.
2. It has a "soundbox" (the part of the tone arm that touches the record) which can play Edison, steel cut, and Pathe records (all of which were different formats).
3. It is violating one of Victor's patents.

Edison phonographs and records used a different form of recording and playback that were not compatible with standard "steel cut" records. Original Pathe records, likewise, had their own standard. Both of those were in a minority and shortly died out but, at the time, they were prevalent enough to be noteworthy. Brunswick phonographs had a unique soundbox that could be modified to play any of these formats.

Most interestingly, on this phonograph, is the patent violation. The Victor Talking Machine Company had a patent on using doors in front of the speaker as a method of volume control. This Brunswick has doors in front of the speaker. I believe this is the reason that there is no serial number on this phonograph; due to the patent violation and, knowing that Brunswick built custom cabinets, I believe this particular phonograph to have been a custom, one-off, order.

This is one of the Edison phonographs I have mentioned. In particular, this is a "London Upright" model and is, in fact, the first antique phonograph I owned.

One can think of the Edison phonographs as the Betamax of their time. They were a better technology with superior sound, but lost the format wars. Edison was the first major phonograph company to exit the market completely. But to this day they still sound fantastic. I wish I had a grill cover for it.

The Victrola VV-IX. This is the second phonograph and first Victrola I owned, and it holds a special place in my heart. This phonograph still sounds great, and is definitely one of the best sounding "acoustic" phonographs I have. I play it regularly in my weekly live streams.

This poor, ole, beat up phonograph is a VV 210. I bought it cheap and honestly wasn't going to keep it; I was going to gut it for parts and turn the entire thing into an outdoor planter. Unfortunately (for me), I played it and it sounds good, so I am restoring it (which is why it is currently missing a door). This one also features regularly in my weekly live streams.

My most recent addition. This is a Granada X, and is a sister to the Granada featured above. It is electric with acoustic playback and sounds fantastic in addition to being beautiful. I play this one a lot with Big Band records, and have been playing it frequently in my December "78 RPM Christmas" live streams. The Nutcracker Suite on this sounds amazing.

And now my oldest phonograph of all - the Graphophone.

Before disc shaped records there were cylinder shaped wax records. The Graphophone was one of those devices which played those cylinders. The original wax cylinders could play up to two minutes of recordings. Later wax cylinders could play up to four minutes of recordings. These types of records were manufactured into the 1910's as the wax cylinders had a better sound than the original shellac discs.

I do have wax cylinders, but this particular phonograph needs some TLC before it can spin well enough to have them played. Regardless, I love the external horn.

These are not all my phonographs. Not shown here are the following:

• A VV-IV
• A VV-VI
• A Sonara
• A Pathe
• A Columbia Grafonola
• A Columbia Grafonola tabletop
• About 8 portable "suitcase style" phonographs

In addition to the phonographs I also have an extensive collect of records to play on them. A few thousand. I share three from my collection in a live stream every Tuesday. Come listen! Details below.

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(c) All images and photographs, unless otherwise specified, are created and owned by me.
(c) Victor Wiebe

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About Me

Amateur photographer. Wannabe author. Game designer. Nerd. 
General all around problem-solver and creative type.

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Blind Skeleton

Online Radio: https://blindskeleton.one/radio/
Three Tune Tuesday livestream: 12:00pm EST every Tuesday

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