Never Say Never

You would think I have learned by now that you “Never say Never!” Back in the early 1990’s I purchased a Columbia model 800 Viva Tonal Graphophone. This machine was first manufactured in 1926 to compete with the wildly popular Victor Orthophonic Credenza. It was really a “cow”. That is the term my dealer friend Dennis coined to designate anything that was big and heavy!

The record and talking machine industry was in a very profitable, comfortable rut at the end of the Great War. Like GM and Ford of the 1970’s they had grown fat and lazy. The business recession of 1921 plus the emergence of Radio was a double whammy that nearly did the entire industry in. Reluctantly the major players had to turn to Western Electric and eventually pay them royalties to use the newly developed microphone and revamp their recording studios for electrically recorded records. It was a bitter pill for the companies to swallow.

This required a total redesign of the playback machines. Electrically recorded records blasted and generally did not sound good on old style machines. Special reproducers and horn designs gave a bass and depth to recordings that was eye-opening.

The Columbia Company was just getting reorganized after a bankruptcy when they introduced the Viva Tonal line of machines engineered for the new electric recordings. This is a rare line of machines to encounter today. I think it is safe to say from a collectors stand point that for every 30 Victor Orthophonics you see, you might encounter one Columbia Viva Tonal.

I was clearing out things to make room here at my Alabama house back in 2000and sold that “cow”. I was so glad to have room again. I said I’d never own another one.

Damn you Craigslist! It was around Thanksgiving I was trolling the internets for old phonographs. As fate would have it, I turned up a Columbia 810 on Craigslist in Chelsea, Alabama for a steal. It looked good from the pictures. I have a friend in Birmingham who would have been the perfect customer for this, but I misplaced his contact information. Got a hold of a friend in Mississippi and gave him the lead on the thing.

I was talking with Billy Sunday who was giving me a hard time for not jumping on that 810. "That is worth five times what he is asking" Billy kept saying. He sure knows how to get me going! After I hung up the phone I checked the Craigslist listings and it was still active!

Early Monday morning I was able to make phone contact with the seller after a couple E-mails. At 11:30 a.m. I was at his house sealing the deal. My Mississippi friend contacted the Birmingham collector who checked the machine over. He did not have any room for it. That is kind of what I thought. This collector has phonographs piled up like cordwood! The seller told me the Bham collector and I were the only ones to contact him in regards to the Graphophone. I was amazed nobody else bit……

We loaded that cow into the bed of my truck on some pads I had brought along. I forgot how heavy those damn things were, my back nearly slipped out “strong arming” the beast onto the tailgate.

The traffic was horrible on the 280 which took me to the 459. (That is pure Western New York to put “the” before you say route numbers!) I was home by 1:30 giving me plenty of time to get it off the truck, onto a dolly, and moved into the house.

The most serious flaw is a front foot that will have to be reconstructed. The rest of the machine is in pretty nice untouched shape. It should clean up well. The 810 was the deluxe model which had contrasting wood tones and polychrome decorations. The finish should rub out and overcoat nicely.

Just what I need another project. I could just do a fast redo of the tone arm, motor and reproducer and sell it at one of the phonograph shows….. but it is looking like it might be a “keeper” for a while……