Dear List:
I just got back in town so missed the opening comments on the "ALVA"
currently on eBay.
It is an Edison coin op works and NOT an original ALVA. The cabinet is
newly made and had to be to take the coin op works which used the larger "C"
frame motor. The "B" Alva had the raised bedplate because the flat bedplate
could not contain the Edison bipolar motor but it only had to be raised half
an
inch to clear the cabinet bottom. There is no On/Off lever on this eBay
machine because the coin op had the coin slot trip which was the electrical
make
and break. The angled section of the lift lever part of the reproducer
carriage was to trip the coin switch off which went through the bedplate down
into
the cabinet below. You can see the hole in the eBay photos if you use image
enhancement. The earliest of the Alva machines used the open frame Edison
bipolar motor and the raised bedplate gave the motor enough room to fit into a
normal Triumph case. The raised bedplates were part of Edison's parts bins
because they were for the IDEAL and later the Idelia. No special cabinets
were made to house the larger older "C" frame motors.. It is obvious someone
got a nice coin op mechanism and made a cabinet for it out of new wood. The
coin op works do say Triumph while the ALVA nameplate distinguishes it from
the
other machines in the Edison line and would be labeled ALVA. The machine on
eBay says Triumph.
All this being said, the mechanism is rare and should bring a nice chunk of
change to someone trying to complete a coin op machine.
Best wishes to the list, time for me to hit the sack after riding in on the
red eye special,
Al
