Servicing job that had to be done to a nice VV-VI that had previously only received a flea market rebuild. Needed motor and spring cleaning, reproducer rebuild. The reproducer had issues. for Lynette in upstate NY.
I know some people who have these machines would never play them. I keep telling them you have to play them to keep the lubrication from settling in one place, but I had someone tell me they weren't going to play it at all, and they left the machine wound at that too! I tell you, you can't tell some people anything
If nothing else not playing them means we get some clean machines at the eventual estate sale. I can swap out a spring and service the motors easily enough. I have bought such shelf queens before, except for being cleaner they aren't different from machines packed away in 1935 and bought straight out of the attic. If they have been kept clean on the outside and protected from damp then I save five to ten or even twenty hours of cleaning and repairing wood. These collectors who don't play the machines will probably have some nice condition records also for us to buy at that estate sale, but probably no good stash of unused needles. Back in the 1950's-70's it was common to fix up a machine for display only. Motors didn't get serviced, reproducers were rebuilt with things like hard plastic isolator gaskets just to hold them on tonearms, but the wood got nicely cleaned and polished. Since the tinkering part is the part I like best I don't mind finding these machines so long as the asking price takes into account the work needed. Perfect example is the VV-VI I just finished, looks great, works terrible when it was brought home. Had the owner just wanted a display piece it would have been fine.
