Standard Phonograph & Records
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GUEST:
My mother-in-law has this in her home. It's my husband's grandfather's. He came to this country from Germany as a small boy and he bought this for himself, a farmer on the eastern plains of Colorado. He bought this for himself as a young man probably about the age of 20. We're guessing somewhere between 1900 and 1910 based on what other relatives recall. We use it frequently, and my mother-in-law sure does, and we enjoy it, but we're very careful with it.
APPRAISER:
Good-- well, it shows. You're right about that, it's about 1910. It's called the Standard. The machine was actually made by the Columbia Phonograph Company, and it was sold by a Chicago company. Now, what's fun about this machine, unlike most phonographs, is you see the spindle hole? You see how big it is?
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
It's twice the size of normal record spindle holes, be it 78, 45 or 33. They had a standard size. But this company was very smart. They bought the machines from Columbia at wholesale-- they weren't expensive machines to make-- and then they sold them by mail order very cheap.
GUEST:
Yes.
APPRAISER:
So a farm boy, young man could buy one, have his own record player, own phonograph, but then he was stuck. He couldn't buy any other records but Standard records because it wouldn't go on the spindle.
GUEST:
Is that right?
APPRAISER:
It was a Chicago... I don't want to say a Chicago scam... (laughing) So what do we have? We have a beautiful-condition machine. The condition of the horn is lovely. The red paint is great, not a lot of scratches. The case is good, the arm is good. It works beautifully and it sounds pretty good. It could use a little bit of work on the sound box here and it would sound ,even better. This gasket here is dried up. It's 80, 90 years old, it's dried up, that's normal. And they're not rare machines. Collectors aren't that fond of them because of the big spindle hole, but at auction, you tend to find that they make between $400 and $600 in very good condition. And before we go, should we have a spin?
GUEST:
Sure.
APPRAISER:
Okay.
GUEST:
Thank you.
APPRAISER:
Wind it up there... turn it on here... And away we go. (marching band music playing scratchily)
Appraisal Details
Executive producer Marsha Bemko shares her tips for getting the most out of ANTIQUES ROADSHOW.
Value can change: The value of an item is dependent upon many things, including the condition of the object itself, trends in the market for that kind of object, and the location where the item will be sold. These are just some of the reasons why the answer to the question "What's it worth?" is so often "It depends."
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Context is key: Listen carefully. Most of our experts will give appraisal values in context. For example, you'll often hear them say what an item is worth "at auction," or "retail," or "for insurance purposes" (replacement value). Retail prices are different from wholesale prices. Often an auctioneer will talk about what she knows best: the auction market. A shop owner will usually talk about what he knows best: the retail price he'd place on the object in his shop. And though there are no hard and fast rules, an object's auction price can often be half its retail value; yet for other objects, an auction price could be higher than retail. As a rule, however, retail and insurance/replacement values are about the same.
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