1890's Columbia Graphophone Type AO Cylinder Phonograph

Home > Worthopedia – Price Guide > Tools >

Terms and Conditions for using our site

1890's Columbia Graphophone Type AO Cylinder Phonograph

Sold For:

or Sign In to see What it's worth.

Sold Date: 04/23/2007
Channel: Online Auction
Source: eBay
Category: Tools

For your consideration today is something very special. We are selling to the highest bidder a vintage possibly later 1890's Model AO Columbia Graphophone cylinder phonograph record that has a working motor and a fabulous cabinet case. This listing is going to be fairly detailed, so we ask that you take a few extra minutes of your time to review the following information and enclosed photo's in order to help you, the buyer, make a sure and confident bid! Some of the pictures do not show the best around the highly reflective areas, so will have to go on our details. To help keep your overall costs down, we only charge exact shipping costs with no handling or packing fee's at all! We will require insurance because of the grand nature of the item, but we only charge you what we have to pay to have it fully insured.

This is really one fine looking cylinder phonograph that features a beautiful oak cabinet which is in great shape, and it still includes the super neat Graphophone decal that is also in very nice shape. The phonograph is labeled as Model No. AO, the manufacturers label is in very nice shape with only light overall wear, the tag calls the item The Graphophone, t are six patent dates that range from 1886 to 1897, then reads Mfd By The American Graphophone Company of New York, and has a serial or ID number of 290347. The tag has all four rivets still in place, it lays very flat and measures 3.25" wide by 2" tall. The main decal on the cabinet matches the patent dates exactly, it remains in very fine shape with a few scattered marks or dings with only one being noticeable, and really is a very neat part of this item! The phonograph has some very fine parts besides the case, the motor winds up very nicely and the spring holds fine, then when flipping the on/off switch, the motor does roll along fairly well. The adjusting screw is in good working order, and the knob has one scratch on the top, otherwise just normal wear. We are not professionals at all in listing correct names for all the parts, but will sure do our best in letting you know what is Please do ask any related questions and we can sure try and get more details to you. The motor does run well, not sure how fast it will go but probably needs some adjusting, t is a belt in place but appears to be a replacement, it looks like a leather strip with three sewing lines that run along with the belt length. Very solid and in great shape. The main plate for the phonograph measures 11" wide by 6.75" tall, the plate is made of very heavy steel with chrome finish on the top, t are no signs of any structure damage at all, the finish does show a number of light surface marks and soft scratches, t are a number of small spots of roughness or surface rust spots that are very minor, the area w the cabinet latch in the front connects has a lot more surface scratches t, but t are no bad or big spots w t is a problem. It still has a nice shine to it, and looks much better in person than what the photo's show because of the highly reflective material. The black bracket or base piece for the cylinder roll and slide bar is in fine shape structure wise with no signs of any problems, all of the mounting screws are in place and appear original, the paint is still pretty good on some spots with the middle area being mostly gone, all four sides of some of those parts have hand painted flowers with some being very nice and neat looking, the front shows the Graphophone name with flowers on both sides, t is some paint wear on the front with small dings and t, the left flower has more wear on it while the right side is pretty clean yet. The right side panel flower has some paint dings but still shows pretty well, the left side has the larger size flower which remains in very nice shape, some light wear, and the back panel shows a very good flower with light wear as well. Some of the gold trim is still very good around some parts of the black frame, then some shows wear. The silver roll that the cylinder record slides onto i...