A BETTER LIFE - The Collectors
Interview of Collectors
A BETTER LIFE - The Collectors
Brett Hurt: A Life's Journey Collecting and Preserving Antique Phonographs
Discover the artistry and dedication behind antique phonograph restoration with our exceptional guest, Bret Hurt, also known as the dyslexic genius. Journey with us into Brett's workshop, where he meticulously breathes new life into these historical audio machines. From a Triumph motor’s intricate reassembly to tales of collecting tools over four decades, Brett’s passion for preserving the past is palpable. His stories, including a heart-stopping moment involving a toppling tool cabinet, underscore the skill and precision required in this unique craft.
In our exploration of vintage music memorabilia, we uncover the joy and satisfaction found in curating a personal collection. Imagine a dedicated music room adorned with original RCA chairs, Victor horns, and rare records, each piece with its own fascinating story. As we share anecdotes of acquiring treasures from yard sales and antique shows, the charm and historical significance of these nostalgic items come to life. Special attention is given to the camaraderie within the collector community, where knowledge and rare finds are shared generously.
Our conversation also turns to the evolving landscape of the antique phonograph market, examining trends such as declining diamond disc prices and the role of modern technology in music collecting. We highlight Thomas Edison’s unexpected influence on phonograph music, with stories of unforeseen hits produced during his absences. This episode is a heartfelt tribute to experts like Brad, whose unwavering dedication to preserving audio history is truly inspiring. Join us to celebrate the passion and effort that goes into reviving these audio treasures, offering a glimpse into a bygone era of sound.
The first words I spoke in the original pornograph, a little piece of practical poetry. Mary had a little lamb. Its feet were quite as slow, and everywhere that Mary went, the lamb was sure to go.
Speaker 3:Hello everybody and welcome back to A Better Life the Collectors. Once again, we have with us today Brad Hurt, the dyslexic genius. He is kind enough to be back with us again after the first episode that all of you love so well that I've watched probably a hundred times, because it's interesting stories, all the suffering we go through in this hobby of collecting antique photographs. Brad has been kind enough to walk us through his shop and his collection, which I am very eager to see, like I always am with every collection. Good morning, brett. How are you?
Speaker 2:I'm doing great. How are you doing?
Speaker 3:I'm good, I'm hanging in it's. Sunday morning, so I'm a little tired, but not too bad.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll show you the shop here in just a minute. Talk about that. You can see the shop.
Speaker 3:Yep, I see fine. Okay, that right there can you see the Triumph motor? Yeah, hold it down. Oh my God, look at that, pull it down. Just point it down a little further. That's a Triumph.
Speaker 2:That's a Triumph special decorated from the factory. Wow, it's under construction.
Speaker 3:Is that yours or a customer's?
Speaker 2:It's mine.
Speaker 3:I found it. Where may I ask you to find such a beast?
Speaker 2:It came out of Fresno, California eight months ago, but everything's here. The guy was a dealer and the family contacted me and said I have all this phonograph stuff. The only thing I have that you might be interested in is this.
Speaker 3:And I said sure, yeah, sure, and so all the parts are there, you just have to reassemble it.
Speaker 2:I have to reassemble it, but it's missing a lot of parts. This piece was wrapped up and then this is everything I've done and I've re-nickeled. I've already re-nickeled all this. This was all rusted. I've had to find a few parts like um, you see the crank handles right here yes okay, this is the original beat up.
Speaker 3:You see this point it down a little farther there you go this I see it's beat up here I machine it you have to, you have to tilt, not not push it down, but tilt, there you go yeah, this is the original part.
Speaker 2:See the wear. And then this is the brand new one I made for it, the shaft dead on and then, um, right now on the motor on Triumphs, you have these steel bearings that go in here.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I don't like those, so I'm machining oilized bronze ones for this. I had to change a few parts because it's a personal machine, but it was beat up. Somebody had wrapped up the motor. Somebody had wrapped up the motor. You know you get into stuff like the lead screw here has dents in it, so I had to find a better one. So I'm going to use this one instead of the original. And then that's all the tools, my lathe and everything else. There's my mill and then the 35 I'm working on right now, which I'm having a hard time getting that screw out right there. I had a good video on doing the reproducer that was really trashed out. And then that's my workbench. And on 35s they don't have a pin to hold the spring, what they have is this piece of metal right here that hooks in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, a lot of other stuff I have to do to it, but this is where all that stuff happens. Here's the cabinet for the case on the 35 I'm doing for the customer, but it's missing the hinge that holds the lid up and I'm having a heck of a time trying to find that.
Speaker 3:That sounds like a rough one. So anybody out there that has one, they're looking to alleviate. You know who wants it.
Speaker 2:Oh, no, yeah. And then this is really. The shop is over 40 years of working. When I moved, I had two of these red ones. I got to tilt it back up because it got bent, and then the other one fell over, so I had to buy this one.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have, you know, all the stuff in here for fixing them and you know the red one holds screws and nuts and pulleys and everything else that I need.
Speaker 3:It's interesting. I don't know when the movers saw those things did they almost fall over, or what?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, they fell over. I used to live in California. This thing got bent and I haven't had time to jack it up.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And the other one was bent too in the move. I didn't realize that until I moved it. And when I moved to move to this new house it fell over and hit me.
Speaker 3:You're lucky to get killed. What are you kidding?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I'm lucky to get killed. And then this tells me threads and nut sizes real fast. I'm not a guy who'd go. Oh yeah, that's a 540, screw, I'm not a guy who'd go oh yeah, that's a 540 screw.
Speaker 2:It's like on restorations I do A lot of people. I'm going to get over here. I found that at a swap meet Somebody had made it in World War II some lieutenant. But it has, you know, standard size screws so you can put the screw in to find the thread size. So then on the smaller ones, I built this, all the tap sizes. So 440, 540, 440 are basically your new one, and then you'll get down to 172 here and stuff. And then there's some other offbeat threads on phonographs. You get the thread and you go okay, this this thing's shut after it places the screw. Now, what size is it? Well, that's how I designed it Fix the size. Wow, the best tool to ever have is one of these. I tell people that's the first tool you should buy and you can get them cheap from Harbor Freight.
Speaker 3:So I think I'll start upstairs, okay, I wanted to try again and spin the camera around. Make it easier on yourself. I meant try to use the button again, try to look for it and see if you can just make it easier on you. Hey, I meant try to use the button again, Try to look for it and see if you can just make it easier on you, because you could be looking at what you're filming.
Speaker 2:Well, I can't get it to flip.
Speaker 3:Okay, we appreciate you struggling through it. Believe me, how are you this morning?
Speaker 2:I'm doing okay, trying to figure out how we should have had kids.
Speaker 3:Oh no, I don't have any either. So oh, we have photographs, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have. We have photographs, I don't know what. No, that doesn't do anything. Microphone oh well't do anything. Microphone oh well, I'll do it this way. I'm going to go upstairs first.
Speaker 3:How do you like the new house?
Speaker 2:Oh, I love it, man, because I got this room up here, I finally have a music room. There's the guard dog, it's great. And that is original parts and service.
Speaker 3:Just what you deserve Parts and service, and over here.
Speaker 2:I have the stamper for, I think, a 45 I found right there. That's the piece. This is the piece that they mounted on one side, the other side when you press the record.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, looks like a hubcap yeah, it looks like a hubcap. There's my other dog, and then those are the kitty picture discs Cheryl likes.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've seen those in the background on many of filming.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and then here's the bigger ones, and then I have a few Victors, and then these right here, these little ones right there, those are all from LA County, la area recording studios. So if you wanted to make a demo tape, right yeah, this was later. I think in the 50s they did that. Then I have an original RCA's chair.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've seen one of those before at an auction.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I got this 15 minutes from my house at a yard sale.
Speaker 3:I need to go to more of these things. I don't go to many and the Wyatt and Joe tell me all the time you gotta go. I love that horn.
Speaker 2:Oh God, that's the original factory. Victor had horns and they would paint them for you, special decorated. They weren't all black. It was an order and I found this one and it had just a little bit of the yellow.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:So I polished it out and I had the paint mixed and then I did it. Then, when I striped it, when you look at the stripes they kind of pop at you a little.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Right. So what I did was I had gold in the middle and then black on the outside, nice, and through its life somebody had welded it here, but I knew what it was when I saw it. Which Victor is that? Okay, I knew you guys were going to ask me these questions and I can't look at a Victor and go, oh, that's a blah blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 3:I can't either. That's why I asked you. I have to look at the tag. It's a five, no Four. What could it be?
Speaker 2:It's a Vic 2, I think.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh, it's a 2. Oh, that's why it looks familiar, yeah. It happens to be one of the only. I have a Vic 2 and a Vic 5. I don't have any of the other. Well, I have a bunch of others, but not in that I'll go through the paraphernalia. Okay.
Speaker 2:This is a guy who invented coon music. It's a sheet music. And then here's my World War II stuff. You know FDR and all his stuff. And then this is the record of signing Social Security and here's a USO one you can make a home recording in the war. All these pictures on the wall are Mrs Geniuses. The top two rows are the dupes of Vogue's.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:That's a lot. This is 40 years of collecting.
Speaker 3:I mean just taking them down and putting them up in the move must have taken days.
Speaker 2:Well, Pam came in from England, my brother and sister-in-law and nieces, and they helped me work on this, which was fun. And then this is my Catholic church. I found that somewhere.
Speaker 3:Wow, I never saw one of those before.
Speaker 2:I found that somewhere. Wow, I never saw one of those before. And then over here is the FDR stuff, one for Pearl Harbor. And then this is a back plate, if you can see it, rca, they're hard to read, but that's the back plate. Oh, I see it. Yeah, 33 and a third. Okay, so let me move over the back plates for you. That's the sleeve for back plate. Yes, I put a kiddie disc in the middle of the hole.
Speaker 3:You're allowed yeah.
Speaker 2:And I just found they came white or blue, and I've never found a white one or a blue one and I just found this one here.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:This black backplate and then this is the backplate.
Speaker 3:And you do a lot of finding in antique shows and garage sales, antique shows Facebook Marketplace or eBay.
Speaker 2:And garage sales, facebook Marketplace or eBay. And then Cheryl, when we were out hunting she loved the kitty art.
Speaker 3:You know, it's kind of like here's Roly-Poly you know, I remember as a kid having, you know, pictures like that. You know what I mean. They don't make it like that anymore, but as a kid, like little books you had, or comic books you had, or games you had all had that type of art on it.
Speaker 2:And then this is all of Cheryl's kiddie discs.
Speaker 3:Which is a very nice collection.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and then what I did was these are more of the recording things, and then we found this one that's extremely rare, and then these are records, so you can play the record here and it has the book you could read it to your children. Is that pretty cool?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had one of those when I was a kid. Yeah, it was a special machine and you had a special record and it came with a book. It wasn't as old as that is, but Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:And then here's some more. This is a hit of the week. And then this one came off, a portable. And then these are the Needleton cards. Yes, and I'm going to get to those in a minute, but those records up here are the jackets with, you know, people like right there the green, yellow and blue, and you know that's mr potato head and right other people on it. We found, I found those two jackets with nurses' stuff on it and that's another kiddie disc thing. So over the years I went to a guy when we lived in California. He said, hey, I have some phonograph stuff. I go what do you have? He goes I have these needle cards. I go, okay, I'll come over and look. So I spent, I think, $65 for the whole set. This is 40 years ago and these are all unopened. So here's a Padella tone.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:And then I have these Wow, look at that one. This is advertising.
Speaker 3:You know they're out there, Everything's out there. People say, oh, my grandfather had a hardware store. This stuff's been in the basement, right yeah.
Speaker 2:Morphodelaton People kill for this cactus needle.
Speaker 3:I mean, that's a beautiful collection of needles. Some people, that's all they collect, right, yeah? And then I have this they collect, right, yeah?
Speaker 2:And then I have this one here, this metal display.
Speaker 3:Wow, that's beautiful.
Speaker 2:I went up to the high desert in California to buy a 16 Eldor and a guy threw that in for me and then we have more here and then this is a packaging thing that it went into. That's that. I have a couple more my splatter record. I'll show you one more paraphernalia. Can you see this red box?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, nope, not that box, this box, right here where my hand is.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:That's the box that all the needles were shipped to the dealerships of Victor.
Speaker 1:Hmm.
Speaker 2:Completely. I opened it.
Speaker 3:Tilt it down a little. Oh yeah, I see, I see, I see.
Speaker 2:Very nice, and this was the end cap.
Speaker 3:Nice collection, that's a nice piece. You know, I like telling a story. Those things all tell a great story.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and then nippers this piece here, right here. This is the wooden block. You never see them. The wooden block under the spring barrel of an outside horn Victor machine.
Speaker 1:Wow yeah.
Speaker 2:This is an original battery battery bottle for a Class M. And then I like the artwork, so I got Bozo the lion, bugs, bunny, dumbo and Bozo. My friend Don helped me put the shelf in and all the record shelving in on this. This is the music room.
Speaker 3:This is all the records. I mean you haven't moved that long ago.
Speaker 2:You really have a lot done, very impressed and I tell everybody when I started out, I bought every phonograph book I could put my hands on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's what I do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then other stuff In 19,. I'm going to do this. I'm not going to brag about myself, okay.
Speaker 3:You can all you want. You're one of the guys that can.
Speaker 2:You can all you want. You're one of the guys that can. There was a guy named Ron Defilson, edison researcher, right. I bought a book from him and I go, oh hey, can you sign it? Okay. And I knew it rebuilded stuff and I don't know what he found, but he wrote that to me in 1999.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah the. Path, A book. You know you gotta buy this stuff.
Speaker 3:I have a guy in California. He goes to. He goes to all kinds of you know whether it's garage sales or antique shows and he sees it and he takes a picture of it and he goes do you want it? It's this much and I never say no, even if I don't want it. I don't say no because I know that he's going to come up with the thing that I'm going to want and he's going to sell it to somebody else. So I try to keep him busy.
Speaker 2:And these are the cards and stuff Advertising what's under your hood.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have a couple of those.
Speaker 2:Cheryl's Raggedy Ann. So this is an Edison Beethoven.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:These were built at the end of production. They were about $200 and some new. This is their version of an orthophonic and they didn't sell a lot of them. I have my dance race producer on this, but the storage is massive. We have two JLVs for storage and then you have this. It's a bigger horn than normal and these things are really really, really loud.
Speaker 3:And for those of you that are listening that don't know what a diamond disc dance reproducer Brett has a great video on his dyslexic genius YouTube channel where he goes through all the reproducers and explains them that diamond discs made. So I urge you to check out that and his other and his other videos.
Speaker 2:And this is the Schubert Same thing, same size horn, just a smaller cabinet.
Speaker 3:If I can ask, where did you find those? If I may, you restored these or they came?
Speaker 2:in oh yeah, I restored them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's why they're such great shape.
Speaker 2:I found that one in Anderson, down the street from me, an hour away, okay, and I got my buddy, howard. He likes to go hunting with me and we drove to Alabama like six and a half hours in his truck to pick this up and he'd never been to a Buc and there was a Bucky's right by the place where we picked this up and these things weigh probably close to 300 pounds and the guy was moving and he had two mover guys and I said here's 20 bucks each man. You can get that in the back of the truck.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the best money you ever spent, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and what I did was when I restored them. You know, on Edison's you drop the record in right, right and it goes clunk. So what I did, I took all this out and I put rubber underneath. So when you drop it in, you hear that it doesn't hit wood.
Speaker 3:Nice.
Speaker 2:And I think I did on this side too.
Speaker 3:That's very nice, and for those of you that have these diamond discs, I suggest that you at least take one of your reproducers and send it to Wyatt Marcus and have him redo it and then put it in every one of your other diamond discs and you will hear a difference. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Okay, give me a moment. I'm not going to play too many.
Speaker 3:You do, whatever you Believe me, anything you do, everyone's going to watch. So feel free to do whatever turns you on, as they say.
Speaker 2:I think that's enough, let's see, I'll give you a taste.
Speaker 3:Wow, there's such amazing machines. I love them, except the bigger ones are so damn heavy.
Speaker 2:These, are way louder than any other. Ed Whoopsie Brett, Okay.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:My spring is a little loose. I also on all Edisons. I take out the volume control.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I hate those damn things. Yeah, and then this is a 17. Yeah, beautiful. Great shape Back up from it a little bit so we can see the front.
Speaker 2:oh yeah, and this is an 8-9 that everybody wants. This is the only machine victor made that was painted from the factory commercially, else you had to pay for is that what?
Speaker 3:why they want it? Because the way it was painted.
Speaker 2:They made these for the immigrant population. Europeans and stuff. Irish and Scottish people come in, so put the Celtic cross on there and a little trick you can do. I'm going to show you this, you're going to think this is hilariously funny. No, it's on the other one. What reproducers on that one. This is orthophonic Right.
Speaker 3:I don't have an orthophonic.
Speaker 2:My 812, which I love these things. And now everybody's going to go. Brad, why is there a number two Victor reproducer in your machine? Here's why the rubber isolator that goes in here on an orthophonic Right Okay, cause this is bigger than the other victors like, what I did was I took an exhibition. I had this, this number two, I took and I put an orthophonic isolator in it. Literally, this will bolt in on the machine. They almost sound identical. So if you have an orthophonic and it died, you can get a number two. Put an orthophonic isolator, this rubber thing, in and it'll play on the machine. And I tried it as an experiment, I went. Oh yeah, I wonder if that'll work. I tried it as an experiment, I went oh yeah, I wonder if that'll work.
Speaker 3:We'll move down the road. It's a great road.
Speaker 2:It's more like a highway, but this is my 250.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I listened to it. You did a concert the other night night, or one or two on it. It was just great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that thing was black. When I bought it over 40 years ago, I paid $500 for it and it came with 500 diamond discs too.
Speaker 3:I told you that story to me. I paid 300 for what. I couldn't move the damn thing. It was so heavy on a. On a. Um, I told you that story with me. I paid $300 for one. I couldn't move the damn thing. It was so heavy on one of the bigger ones I forget which model it was. It was shrink-wrapped and it had 100 diamond discs in it. I wonder why it was so damn heavy.
Speaker 2:The early diamond discs. This is the early one, the A250.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:The horn comes apart in two places like a signet horn Right. And what's cool on these? You can see they faux painted the inside of the horn. The fact, yeah. So I refowed all that. I redid everything. It's got like 40 coats of shellac on it. I hand rubbed it French polished the whole thing. That's my first diamond disc. This is my favorite tabletop Edison. This is the Amarillo 5.
Speaker 3:You told me that's the one I need, that's the one I want. I said to Joe and Wyatt we're out in Pennsylvania. I said if you see an Amarillo 5, there's definitely a finder's fee in there for you.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, and then the hard part is finding that reproducer for them.
Speaker 3:Right, that's the.
Speaker 2:N56. And so you have a four-minute stylus. Now, this has a diamond in it, right. And this is a sapphire, that way you can play black wax on it. Four-minute black wax, yeah. And then my chest-on-chest that's just full of Edison cylinders. You know, and you always want to be nice to people. A good buddy of mine, Ken Herrera, said one day, called me up hey, Brett, you saved me so much money doing phonographs on sending your present and he sent the Edison Mumsley those red books right there.
Speaker 3:Wow, that's some collection. You see them one and twos, but you never see them like that, oh yeah.
Speaker 2:All right, we'll move on to the other section. Anything else you want to see up here?
Speaker 3:Oh, I didn't do all of this. You didn't do the middle of the room, oh look at that. I saw that the other day. Those are your Berliners, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my.
Speaker 3:Berliners, this is my MS. Yeah, it's a beautiful horn.
Speaker 2:This is an Edison spring motor. It's about an 1896 or something in there 18.
Speaker 3:Is that referred?
Speaker 2:to as an M? Or is an M different than a spring motor? This spring motor is the grandmother of Triumphs. It has a Triumph motor in it.
Speaker 1:It's the same thing Wow.
Speaker 2:And then these are Edison oil cans, but you can see they come in different kind of shapes.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And then this is an Edison brush. So you know, I always talk about graphite on the Governor Drive gear. Yes, well, this is from a dealer. Okay, he's like the from a dealer. Okay, he's like the wholesaler guy for Edison Hold it up just a little touch more.
Speaker 3:There you go. No, just move the pamphlet straight up in the air, there you go. Yeah, now you can see it.
Speaker 2:See that pamphlet. This is telling you all about Edisons and how to adjust them.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:On the back side it's telling you about graphite grease as themselves to put on the governor drive gear. I read this, I go okay, I'm going to try that Brilliant minds work alike. Yeah, and then that's my BG, columbia, beautiful. Just a minute. I think that's my Vic 3 right here. I might be wrong With another back plate on it.
Speaker 3:Columbia back Nice horn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is a Vic-5 we own, totally unrestored. The only thing I did was rebuild the reproducer and oil it.
Speaker 3:That looks like mine a lot Similar horn With all the dents. Yeah, I had Duffy redo mine and had lots of dents in the brass part of the horn.
Speaker 2:A few collection reproducers.
Speaker 3:Just a few.
Speaker 2:Well, this one here is interesting. I did a video. This is a Vixonia, okay.
Speaker 3:Hold it up a little more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a Vixonia.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It has a diamond in it and this hooks onto a Victor machine and you can play a diamond disc on a Victor machine. Wow, this is my 1896 Edison home With extremely low serial number.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have one that very low serial number I don't think it's as low as yours, but that someone's looking to sell. They want a lot of money for it. It has the brass mandrel.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but the serial number? Can you see that right there 232.
Speaker 3:Yeah. There may not be one that exists that low besides that one.
Speaker 2:This used to be a spring motor. Somebody converted it.
Speaker 3:Oh.
Speaker 2:And then Edison Standard 18. I think 1898 Edison Standard, but with a polyfoam attachment, with the two reproducers, okay, and then this is a Victor M with the extended horn, the aluminum horn, which is fairly rare.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've seen them in books. I've never seen one as a matter of fact. I saw one the other day in a book and I was like when did I ever see an aluminum horn before? And now you have one.
Speaker 2:This is like 1902, victor, and they're noisy. I built this stand right here one day because you know, even on the shorter tonearm stuff you have to lift them up to put the needle in.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:You got to kind of manhandle these things to put a record on Right and then you put this on. Problem is I made this because this thing was dragging and it was hitting the other piece and then this is my joke, can you read?
Speaker 3:that? Yeah, that's funny.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's funny.
Speaker 3:And when you play those machines it's like a juggling act, right? You're trying to put the needle in and you're screwing, and then it doesn't fit, and then you have, and then you have the record in one hand. You finally lay it down and then you know it's one thing, then you gotta crank it. You know it's. You have to learn. In order of progression. I'll let you hear something, thank you, you have to learn in order of progression, I'll let you hear something.
Speaker 2:Thank you, you want to hear noise?
Speaker 3:Let me get my Well, for me that's more usual, but for you everything's quiet.
Speaker 2:Oh they're noisy, yeah, they're noisy. Then I have a, the original pamphlet that came on your for your Edison.
Speaker 3:Nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like paperwork. Okay, we'll go. We'll run downstairs the grand tour.
Speaker 3:Little, little Temptation.
Speaker 2:And then it's a little dark in here, but that's.
Speaker 3:That's fine.
Speaker 2:When I bought it it didn't look like this and it had been dropped and the back here was all broken out. That's a six. That's a six.
Speaker 3:That's beautiful.
Speaker 2:I cleaned it, refinished every hang, polished out all the gold. That's a Vic-18. I got that from Victor Victrola, Paul Eady.
Speaker 3:Nice.
Speaker 2:And then this is hard to see in here, but this is a Japan 120, all done from the factory. I have videos on all this. It was all painted robin egg blue, even on the doors. Wow, I can get this open. You can see here on the door.
Speaker 3:The people that bought them had the money to have them made any way they wanted.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Having this done was more money than the machine. And then, there that's my schoolhouse. I walked into an antique dealer that was sitting there on the ground not running, and he wanted a massive amount of money $800. I said, okay, I'll take that.
Speaker 3:That's another one on my hit agenda.
Speaker 2:Yeah, those things are expensive. You know, and I go, you know, and then we'll. That's a Cariola. It's not a kiddie phonograph. You carried it everywhere you wanted. It's all made out of tin and faux, painted in oak or mahogany, like that.
Speaker 3:How cool is that, and that's a great spot to put it, it's perfect.
Speaker 2:And then that's a Vic II humpback and then the that's a Vic-2 humpback and then the cabinet's a pulley. Custom order from the factory that you open the doors holds it like 450 78s.
Speaker 3:Really nice. Yeah, how do you find anything?
Speaker 2:Oh, where'd I find this?
Speaker 3:No, how do you find the record? Are they labeled?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I know that's all the classical.
Speaker 3:Beautiful yeah.
Speaker 2:And Cheryl likes the paraphernalia. But I'll start Just before we get there. I will go to. That's a sterling.
Speaker 3:Wow, beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my buddy Howard picked it up. We were on vacation and that was here in Greenville, and then a tin foil and then a Regina hexaphone.
Speaker 3:They're beautiful machines.
Speaker 2:And then we have the paraphernalia. So Just a little bit, a little bit of needle tins.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do like needle tins.
Speaker 2:You see this one here, where my finger is a gray one yeah. That's Victor's first one.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:These are Duratone and Bakelite that hold needles. These are Duratone and Bakelite that hold needles and then just go down the road. And all this was gotten before eBay, antique stores and flea markets.
Speaker 3:Yeah, sometimes they don't even know what it is, they're just thrown in a box, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then we have record dusters and we have a little record on a card there. See that one down there.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 1:Yeah the black yeah.
Speaker 2:And then down, and then that's a needle sharpener, and then we have a fan in there. Here's another this is a repeater Edison light bulb more kiddicket stuff. Then I'm going to get down here. Here's oil jars and this is the plier-looking thing that's a bamboo cutter. Needle stangs, bamboo cutters, grease jars. Okay, you see the Edison right there on the top with the brown wax in it and it has sewing on the top.
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's Edison's first cylinder box. Wow, and they were handmade at the factory. Yeah, oil cans.
Speaker 3:Pretty cool. Yeah, there's always something new to buy right.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Love this. Mrs Genius's Maroon Gem D.
Speaker 3:Beautiful.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then we'll go over to the Big Cajunas D Beautiful, yeah, and then we'll go over to the big kahunas Edison Opera. I bought that in Vegas for $1,000. And I bought the Triumph E for $1,000. One day they were both shot to death. I rebuilt this is the first machine I really rebuilt.
Speaker 3:So just tilt it down just a touch, not forward, just tilt. No, tilt the camera down a touch. There you go.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there was no paint on it or anything. I redid all this, refinished it.
Speaker 3:Beautiful machine.
Speaker 2:Right. This is the nickel-plated Triumph.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I saw all the videos on that. It's just something.
Speaker 2:I got that from Music Treasures of Miami.
Speaker 3:That's where I figured you got it.
Speaker 2:The Class M.
Speaker 3:Wow, how big is the horn on that class, sam? It looks smaller, is it smaller?
Speaker 2:No, that's the 14-inch brass that they came with. Yeah, and then Triumph. E really nice machines, the restored.
Speaker 3:Vic-5 downstairs. Beautiful, it's a wooden wood horn.
Speaker 2:Is that a spear horn? Yeah, that's a spear horn. Yeah, and when I got that the horn was a few pieces. I rebuilt all that and then I think that's a Vic-3. I'm not sure Somebody will know when they look at the cabinet. Absolutely yeah. And then hand-tooled leather for dents Bought that and it was messed up. Mrs Genius took denatured alcohol and ear bud things and cleaned all this off little by little, all by hand. I have pictures of her doing that.
Speaker 3:That was 40 years ago. That's a beautiful machine. Oh yeah, you see them but not very often, you know.
Speaker 2:Not very often. Maybe at one of the bigger auctions you see that some collector is selling off, that's our Lyric. A1. I moved, I cranked it up and the spring broke. I'm probably going to get on it down the road, probably in June or July. Yeah, I redid all this.
Speaker 3:It didn't look like this. You definitely don't see many of those.
Speaker 2:And then this is another A1. This is a later one.
Speaker 3:Right, they're beautiful. I love the A1s. Oh, a later one, right they're beautiful.
Speaker 2:I love the A1s. Oh yeah, so that's pretty much it.
Speaker 3:That's more than it is the understatement of a lifetime. It's really a whole lifetime collection of being oh, I missed one. Oh, the EMG.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, We've got to see the granddaddy of them all.
Speaker 3:That's the one everybody wants to see. So those were custom made, one at a time. Is that how they were produced?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're a bespoke phonograph company.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Okay, and you went in and talked to them about building it. They build cabinet machines too.
Speaker 3:I've read about them, and yours is the only one I've ever seen Just a minute, and they're all different, right, Because they made them all.
Speaker 2:That's the 28-inch horn Right, they made them all. That's the 28-inch horn Right oh look at that. They made one that was oversized, but this is all made out of newspapers and phone books.
Speaker 3:Like paper mache kind of thing. Paper mache, yeah, and you imagine those horns must have not really survived. I mean paper mache horn.
Speaker 2:Yeah, here I'll give you a run. Emg reproducer Soft tone needle Soft tone needle, I guess it's loud right. There's no volume control.
Speaker 3:It's just full blast all the time. Were they very expensive to buy originally?
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, they're expensive.
Speaker 3:I mean you don't see them at auctions. I mean it's like a miracle find Collector between collector. Right.
Speaker 2:Wyatt Barker's contacting me about that, and we bought it.
Speaker 3:It's beautiful.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, oh no, it's a fun hobby. Just buy what you like.
Speaker 1:Enjoy it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, wyatt tells me because I always ask him. I said what do I really need to concentrate on? He goes. Well, you can concentrate on better machines, he goes. There's two ways of doing it. One person just buys everything they want, fills up their house and their storage things and don't really use them. And then other people concentrate on something and I mean I look at it this way and you probably look at it the same way is that anything I have in my house I want to be able to play, so I have to be able to get to it and play it. And I try to play a couple every day and go around, keep going around the rooms, because I look at them like airplanes, right? You think if you don't, if you don't play them one day, you're going to go to it and it's not going to play. Oh yeah, so I appreciate everything you showed us.
Speaker 2:It's a once-in-a-lifetime. Look, yeah, you know, just look, because you know machines. The market's getting very soft on them right now. If you look at Facebook Marketplace, you know, here's a diamond disc for $1,000, c19. Well, here's another diamond disc C19, for $300.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:You know, okay, I'm going to buy the $300 one, you know if it's in good condition. You know the veneer's not missing and stuff, but they have really crashed. I mean they have really crashed.
Speaker 3:I think it's more than just the size. I think it's the weight too. I mean, bring him in and out. I don't know what. I just bought a stand. I don't know what model. This is A Columbia from Joe. It was totally restored. He had bought a Puritan at auction at Stanton. He was bringing that in, he had to make room, he had to get something out. He was bringing that in, he had to make room, so he had to get something out. I ended up with this. It's heavy. It's not too bad. I thought I broke it when I took it out of the back of my car because it hurt my back and I lost control. I like the floor models. I really do. My back doesn't anymore.
Speaker 2:They get heavy for me too. I really do my back doesn't anymore. They get heavy for me too.
Speaker 3:I mean whatever I try to hire people, or I have a guy that works in a building in my office and I just pick him up at the office, bring him here and say you got to take the photograph out of the back of my car.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the nice thing about now is that you're out hunting records, you can look at a 78 and you can ask Siri hey, Uncle Josh at the laundromat and you literally can pull it up on YouTube and listen to it and go, okay, Back in the day we started.
Speaker 3:Right, I have my whole record collection on my phone and it's not voluminous, but it's a couple of thousand, and so when I'm pulling diamond discs, I mean I hate having three of one and I end up giving them away to somebody. But you know, you could buy diamond discs until the end of time and you're not going to fill up your collection, right? No, you could buy Diamond discs until the end of time and you're not going to fill up your collection, right? No, there are so many.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So and they really didn't do good work until the end when Edison gave the final division to his two sons and then they tried to play catch-up and this was the Depression starting. You know that's when they came out with the Beethoven, you know, and stuff, edisonics, you know. Then they started doing more jazz, more big band, you know, gold Gate Orchestra, more, you know they were recording better stuff because Edison always controlled what was on the records.
Speaker 3:And he was deaf and he was deaf. So yeah, I know that's what I was talking to jack stanley the other day he said, when I was asking him about because we we did a uh I don't know if you saw it we did a one on edison the man and he was telling me that you know he's read through all his papers and whatever books he can add at the museum and also stuff from Charlie Hummel that he had had notes that he had written, letters that he had written, and he said that you know, when they would do these demonstrations where they would compare the diamond discs to the actual singer or the actual musician, that Edison would teach the musician how to sound like the diamond disc rather than a diamond disc to sound like the musician. So you couldn't tell them apart. But that's Edison for you, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, when he'd go down to Fort Myers, then the recording place in Oregon they would start producing a lot of different music because the boss was gone, yeah, and then he'd go. Why did you record that? That's terrible music. Then it sold like hotcakes. He goes, oh okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, he understood the dollar. That's one thing he did understand, right? Oh yeah, so well, I appreciate you giving us this time. I know your schedule is a little tight today and I know you're going away again, but your collection is just unbelievable and your dedication to the hobby is amazing. Thanks, I appreciate it, thank you, and we'll continue to keep watching your videos on YouTube and I appreciate any of your input. And I do want to send you those pictures of my wood horn. That's splitting a little bit. I know you said to send them to you the other day and I'll definitely get around to doing that, and I know you're going away, but thank you so much.
Speaker 2:All right, it was great fun.
Speaker 3:I enjoyed it. Thank you, bye-bye.
Speaker 1:Bye, the first words I spoke in the original pornograph. A little piece of practical poetry. Mary had a little lamb. Its feet were white as snow. No-transcript.