Who cares!
Why should one care if old music machines are being faked? If a person gets pleasure out spending a few hundred $ on a machine that will play old records and make people smile, why not.
An original machine may not look so great with a painted horn, rather than a shiny new looking brass one. And afterall its only the anorack brigade that can tell a real machine from a fake one!
Maybe the answer is that a counterfeit machine is poorly cobbled together and will have a short lifespan before something breaks. Collectors posess machines that are 120+ years old and still run without repair. Also the fakes look fake.
Their cheapness devalues exactly the ambience a person may be trying to create. Many will say that it is a perversion of history, and the purveyors of these junk items are dishonest.
You need to make up your own mind about being scammed.
As with many things: a little bit of education into a subject can only be of help!
The OECD maintains that
"Counterfeit goods can be found in nearly every industry, from luxury
products like designer handbags and watches to everyday goods. Typically
of lower quality, counterfeit goods may pose health and safety risks. Counterfeiting
had become the largest criminal enterprise in the world"
Our motivation for this website is that we tire of questions involving crapophones such as: Would you like to buy this machine that belonged to our Grandmother / is it original / we bought this from a reputable dealer / our machine is broken, can you fix it / What is it worth?
First Impression - Various Junk
Recommended sources of Phonographs, Gramophones & Parts
Most of the online auction / sales sites, such as Ebay,
have 90%+ of the phonograph / gramophone items being crapo or frankophone
machines. Even online "curated" sales platforms that claim
"Catawiki Buyer Protection
Your payment is safe
All objects are quality checked
All sellers are verified"
and have experts that "verify" items with questionable "expertise"
Dorotheum - most obvious giveaway: crapo horn, cheap motor with angled winder that never was a feature of a real horn machine, etc
Recommended Dealers
Recommended information Resources
Talking Machine Forum
The Victor Victrola Page
Crapophone Video Gallery & Crapophone mother load
site under construction!
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