I can give you a little interesting background on the upside down label Vernis Martin machine as I traded it to Bob. I will also say this is probably for me it's the machine that got away, although I am very happy with the machines I received in trade. It was a pleasure to trade with Bob.
As far as collecting goes, it is interesting how one thing leads to another. I still consider myself a relatively novice collector. However, a few years ago I lucked into a nice collection of phonographs and records. I am not a record collector so I put them on eBay. To my surprise several of the records went in the $100-400 range. In my eBay description I explained that I wasn't good at grading records and that I mainly collected phonographs. At this point I was contacted by a record collector who lived nearby and wanted to look at the records. It was discussed that if he was interested, we might be able to work out a trade for his father's phonograph collection. Long story short we agreed that I would give him the records of his choice plus a large sum of cash in exchange for the collection. Shortly after we completed the transaction I received an e-mail that he (Chris King) had won a Grammy for best historical record. He has a fascinating job of hunting down rare 78's, figuring out their historical significance and remastering them onto CD. As for the Vernis Martin, it sat in his father's (Les King) collection near Homestead, Virginia for many years. Years ago, Les King played piano for Bill Haley who was famous for the song, "Rock around the Clock". Some of you may remember Les. He even recorded a few 78's of his own on a local label. I never knew him, but apparently he had a passion for collecting musical oddities since the 1950's. Chris and his father beat the bushes for old phonographs and records in the foothills of Virginia. They would go to old neighborhoods and ask around for old bluegrass, hillbilly 78's and phonographs. Apparently they did well. I purchased/traded for his collection of about forty machines and parts about five years ago. He had some nice machines including a Wizard, Hexaphone, AB McDonald, Columbia BS, Amberola 1A, but the Vernis Martin was the prize. I hoped to quickly sell enough machines to get my money back and still get to keep some of the higher end machines for my collection. A far cry from the Edison Homes and Standards I currently owned. My wife and family thought I was crazy. To be honest I felt a little foolish using my home as equity for antique phonographs. As phonograph collectors you might understand, but anyone else on the planet - no. The first show was in Delaware. I opened my van door full of Phonographs, it was amazing. I had a bidding war on several of the items. In fact, some of you probably purchased them from me in the parking lot. The guy running the show yelled at me for setting up in the parking lot so I closed shop, but I had already about emptied my van. Although I sold them too cheap, I got my money back within a few months and was able to keep the Hexaphone, BS, AB McDonald, and the Vernis Martin which I later traded for Eclipse and Victor XVIII. Interestingly enough I sold the bulk of the phonographs to a guy from Morocco who transported them in a container by ship and claimed there was a market for high end antiques there. Since then, I have sold him several more phonographs so perhaps there is a market. Who would have known? That was a long winded story and what you may ask, what is the moral??? Well if there is one, it would be you never know where the road will take you. If you have a passion for something such as phonograph collecting.follow up on your leads. Stuff is out there. It takes some work, but it is fun and along the way you will have great experiences, meet interesting people and if you are lucky you may even end up with a few interesting machines. Merry Christmas! John Pisano
