My grandmother passed away in November of 2008, and when I went down to Springfield for her funeral, my dad and I discovered an upright phonograph in her garage. We also found a substantial collection of old 78rpm records in the lower storage and a lot of unused needles in the upper turntable compartment. I could not take it home at the time because we were still in our town home with a 1 car garage, and there wasn't any room to spare for it. My dad took it home with him and brought it up here to Palatine during the Christmas visit. We intend to work on it together here and there when he is here, but I will work on it in between when I get the chance.
The phonograph is a 1919 Brunswick-Balke-Collender Co. model 120. The original price tag on it was $370. To put that into perspective, a new car cost $1000 in 1919. That would be like spending $8000 on a sound system today! It boasted the Ultona Reproducer tone arm, which had three different needle heads allowing it to play all major types of records being produced at the time(Victor, Pathe, Edison, Columbia, and Brunswick)......this was the only phonograph that could do this.
Unfortunately, a garage has been its home for many years, and it is in rough shape. Hardly any of the original finish on the exterior mahogany cabinet remains, and water damage has caused the veneer panels to separate on one of the cabinet doors. The gold silk that covered the sound cone disintegrated decades ago. A look at the mechanical assembly reveals that much of the original 90 year old grease has solidified on all of the gears, and one of the two spring motors is in bad shape. The inside of the cabinets and turntable is in pretty good shape. The platter felt is still nice and green, and two of the three needles still transmit sound. The finish on the inside is in pretty good shape, I don't think I am going to do any restoration work on it other than cleaning years of dust off of it. Here are some pictures documenting how it looks today.
