I would refuse to do any business with someone who parts out a perfectly
good machine. This is how you get conglomeration machines that have no
authenticity. Here in California we had a guy name Neuman Miller who billed
himself
as the "Edison Wrecking Yard." He would sell you a machine piece by piece
but you ended up with a Model A Standard motor, a Model D topworks, a Model B
cabinet, a Model E Carrier Arm, a Model B Reproducer, and a Model F Standard
Flowered Blue Metallic 10 panel horn. This is how you end up with Mutts.
Even worse was Karl Frick who made oddball horns out of old peach cans,
while "tuning" your reproducer swapped out your good 2 or 4 minute stylus for
a
"dual speed needle" which was from a dictaphone, and sold all kinds of
abominations which now appear and go for high prices on eBay to poor
unsuspecting
neophytes who think they have found something rare. We old timers call his
stuff "Frick's Freaks!"
Quite recently I needed a Triumph lid but the seller separated the lid from
the handle to maximize the profit. I just could not bring myself to get into
a bidding war to bring both items back together again. The irony was that I
would have paid more for a complete lid than the separated parts brought. I
lost a lot of respect for the seller on that one.
Finding bits and pieces of machines at garage sales is one thing but having
a complete playing machine parted out destroys something completely original
to make something that is not. I see a loss there.
Kindest regards to all on the list,
Al
Who was assembled from 40,000 Krispy Kreme donuts...
And is old enough to where he now thinks his doctors are parting him out...
