My Great Grandparents Victor III

When I was about 6 years old, My Grandfather read me a sesame street book called "Whats Up In The Attic". while reading it, he pointed to a phonograph that was pictured in the book and said we have one of those in the attic. And My Phonograph and Jukebox Collection was born....Hear is The Machine that my grandfather spoke of......

(J.M.J.)

Nice looking machine, nice horn, but is that the original horn, or an original option horn perhaps? The reason I wonder is that I recently restored, and then sold for $650.00 to a GreenBay collector, a Victor II humpback with the standard black and brass horn. I have seen horns like this at the Union show through the years but never knew what to make of them. How much are you selling this machine for? If it is within reasonable driving distance of Wisconsin, or near my planned route to California this winter, I would be mildly interested, let me know in private, off board, at jnormanvandrisse@yahoo.com.

Ommmm, well....
being that it has been in my family for many years, and not to mention Having it posted as my "Pride and joy" , It is NOT!and will never be for sale as long as I am around. I can not even believe you have the nerve to ask that.

That's a fantastic looking Vic 3. You must be very proud to own it considering it's condition & family history.
It's a shame the Victor Victrola site hasn't got serial number information to accurately date your machine, but I'm sure they'd be greatful if you could pass on information about your machine to help build a serial no. reference.
To answer jnorman's horn question, only the earliest V3's will generally have the brass witches hat style horn.
I'm not sure about the Victor company, but G&T/HMV introduced the same morning glory horn for their machines in late 1904 as an optional horn, but by 1906, the witches hats was consided old fashioned & machines after this date very seldom turn up with the old style horn. No doubt Victor would have offered the WH horn for longer, but I doubt it would have survived by the time WW1 started. If it did, it probably would only be offered on their cheapest machine.
The Victor 3 was available right up until the early 20's, so I would imagine there would be a lot more of this model with the later style horn around.

Congratulations once again edisonclone on being the proud owner of such a nice original example of the Victor 3.

BTW: The bullet brake, as on your machine, was phased out by Victor in around 1912, so your machine shouldn't be any later than that.

WOW!!!! Very nice machine! Looks very well preserved too. I read the post about somebody wanting to buy it, its understandable alot of collectors would be interested in buying it, but its also understandable that it is also a family heirloom and means alot. I would love to find one of them myself, they are very pricey over $1,000.00 and don't come on the market alot. Also, I own a few of my grandparents and great grandparents machines. I get people wanting me to sell them but they have been in my family so long, I choose not to. I have my paternal great-great grandparents Columbia B Eagle, paternal great grandparents Magnola Talking Machine, Maternal Grandparents Edison Home and Amberola cylinder machines. I will try and post pics of them soon.
My one Great grandmother gave me her Talk-O-Phone outside horn machine back in 1988, it is still nice.