The annual Phonograph and Music Box Show at Donley’s Wild West Town , near the town of Union, Illinois, is something of a summer rite for me and Del. We went up there together, both of us as first timers, on one of our first dates. We camped out under the mosquitos at the dreaded KOA next to Donley’s itself. The following year, we took a motel room in nearby Hampshire. We seemed to alternate between camping and motelling thereafter, but the motel has an edge on the pitiful, badly managed KOA. The KOA features a species popular in Illinois: the passively aggressive vicious front desk ‘help’ that delights in the misery of customers. The much ballyhooed Midwestern friendliness conceals a rolling-eyed sneer and a penchant for devilishness. The KAO, that first time, assigned us a site in a swamp. We complained and got moved up the hill. We were still within striking distance of a spirited phalanx of West Nile carrying mosquitos. We braved it by ditching camp cookery to eat over at Donley’s steak house restaurant, and by otherwise staying zipped up in the tent. Still, we both sported welts on our posteriors long after our return home. Our last chance at the KOA was even worse. Del vows ‘never again.’

Last year, we skipped the show. Uncertainty about the economy and its effect on academia proved a disincentive. At present, the uncertainty is, if anything, even greater. I’ve had a change in attitude. What the hell. You can’t forestall or predict every (any) calamity. This year, we came to the show armed with money. I came armed with an actual wish list. And we stayed in a motel.

As usual, we were precipitated on during the drive up. We left Rantoul driving my Ford Ranger at about 7:30 in the morning. We got up to Donley’s at about 11:30. I got right to work on picking items off my list. Del got right to work going through the bins of records. I started with a quick tour. I noticed that good ol’ Kurt Nauck gave the phono show a pass this year. Too bad. He might have enjoyed the several vendors selling antique firearms. Since he’s running an Ebay blowout housecleaning event, I can only assume he was too busy with his inventory to make the trip up from Texas. The folks from Archeophone were there, and we chatted. I saw plenty of Tim Fabrizio, but a few years down the pike from 2004 when I purchased my first cylinder phonograph from him, he no longer remembers me. I saw numerous other phonotables. It occurs to me I won’t ever get the inside scoop on the Donley’s Show unless I get in the game as a vendor. I can’t imagine that it’s as profitable as Ebay. I didn’t see Mark Gaisser of Croakin’ Frog Antiques this year either. There’s another Ebayer who’s decided Donley’s isn’t worth the trip. He’s been a mover and shaker at both this show and other Northeast shows, so his absence is a significant sign of deterioration.

After my quick tour, I got down to business. I bought an Edison crank for the Home from Ronald Sitko of Waterford, New York. Next, I went around looking for Diamond Disc machines. The Diamond Disc was Edison’s response to the disc format after his usual bull-headed years of resistance. He’d designed a disc machine at the beginning, in 1878, before the work on electric lighting systems interrupted. When the old man did turn to the disc format in 1912, his design and approach were characteristically eccentric. The Diamond Disc is vertically cut. The disc is 1/4 inch thick. These records are even heavier than they look, because the composition is resin coated sawdust with a laminated surface of something much tougher. The Diamond Disc system is arguably the Apple computer of the acoustic sound reproduction era. It is an eccentric machine that can sound absolutely fabulous. I have been wanting one in my collection for several years now. I already owned a handful of the discs. They sound good enough on a modern turntable with the appropriate stylus, but nothing really matches the ‘original instrument.’ ‘Diamond Disc Machine’ was on my list, just beneath the crank.

I had been watching a tabletop model on Ebay, at $399 ‘buy it now.’ The seller offered to bring the machine to the Union show. I resisted. I had the notion that if there was no sale, the seller might bring the machine to Donley’s and try to sell it there. Better to buy a machine after looking it over rather than sight unseen if at all possible. There were no table top DDs at the show, but there were quite a few console models. Some of these were in splendid cabinets, way out of my price range. I saw a B-150, which sits over a table on spindly legs. I asked to crank it up and play the record that was on the turntable. The vendor offered to sell it for $275 while the record played. I watched as the shiny black of the disc surface turned a shade of gray in the reproducer’s wake. Not a good sign.
    “$250? I’ll throw in the record!” Perhaps the vendor saw what I saw.
    “I’ve only just begun to search the show. But I’ll take your offer into consideration for sure.”
The next DD was in a full cabinet, an S-19. The “S” is the “S” in “Sheraton.” This particular S-19 was sold starting in 1919, and was a simpler, less ornate version of the popular C-150 (‘C’ for ‘Chippendale’) of earlier provenance. But this S-19 played the record without damage, winning the reproducer contest hands down. The vendor offered it for $200, plus he was throwing in the records (47). It was a reasonable offer, so I bought the machine. 

I moved on to the next item. Cygnet Horn. Yes, well…the external horn cylinder machines sound very tinny and trebly with the ride the reproducer witches hat horns that they came with. There has always been an after-market for large horns. These large horns can be quite large indeed. They are mounted on cranes and eat up a lot of floor space. The Edison company, in 1909, began selling several varieties of swan-shaped horns that could be fitted to existing machines, relinquishing some of that space. These horns can be found nowadays in both original versions and reproductions. The reproductions on offer this year were only available from that all-around go to parts guy, Sitko. I waited around for him to be free of customers and asked him if he had the elbows to go with his clearly advertised and available bell. (The Cygnets come in two parts that fit together with pins and a catch.) His Cygnet replicas are not made by him, but by some supplier out there who provides them to a number of dealers. Sitko had labeled his Cygnet bell with a sign that read
    “Last one!”
In response to my question, he said,
    “No, but I can ship you the elbow for free if you buy both here at the show. That’s a big savings, by the way. It costs fifty bucks to ship these things.”
    “Do you also have the cranes?”
The Cygnet is mounted to the phonograph by a special crane that suspends the horn over the reproducer on a spring. The crane goes into a fairly hefty bracket that is mounted on the back of the instrument’s case.
    “I got the cranes.”
    “Brackets?”
    “They’re available here at the show. Lots of people have ’em.”
I told him I had to think it over. His plainly evident New Yorker’s irritation was refreshing.

While thinking it over I shopped for another item on the list: a copy of Edison 1515 to replace the one I won from Kurt, but broke before I could get it on the mandrel. “Home Sweet Home,” which I have written about here, was performed by a number of people holding the place of that number in the catalog. I have it on a V- cylinder by Harry MacDonough. I had it in my hands for a moment there by Joseph Natus! (Fool! You’re a clumsy fool, Ken Beck!) Now, at Donley’s I worked through boxes of black wax looking for 1515. I found a dozen other things. Then, I went to find Del.

I found her in the restaurant as I made my way out to the car with a bag of cylinders. She’d been sitting in the bar, at a table in the lunch counter, without service for half an hour. We’d packed a cooler full of healthier munchables. I suggested we make a beeline for the pickles in our cooler. She showed me some of her stash. She had a copy of a record on the White Church label. (A gem, as it turns out.)

So after the pickle interlude, I went back to the show. I found a complete nicked and slightly rusty original Cygnet for $375. I went back to Sitko for the crane and piked up the bracket from his neighbor. I was down to my last $60.

I again found Del, who was out back working the bins in front of my S-19. The vendor graciously agreed to hold onto it until the next day so we wouldn’t have to drive around with it in the truck. We headed for the motel, which was in Elgin. I’d reserved a room at this place on recommendation from the Donley’s web site. I looked it up on a map, I swear to God. It turned out to be a fair hike from the show. When we found the place, it turned out to be in the throes of a grand renovation. No fridge, no microwave, no pool, just a lot of cracked glass and shambles. Our first room had a broken door lock. Our second room, across the hall, passed muster – barely. We found a nice place to dine, and we stocked up on wine.

In the morning, the weather had cleared and warmed a bit. (We were enjoying the lull in the stream of hot days.) Business at the show was short. We got the Edison into the truck and under cover. We drove up to the Railroad Museum in Union proper and rode the train. Then, in early afternoon, we headed back for the highway home.

Where else but at the Phono Show can you see up close the parade of American (and even international) industry? Machines selling for a considerable sum were once the worthless cast-offs of the march of technological progress. I paid good money for records on Blue Amberol cylinders that are prized now specifically because there was weak demand in 1928 or 1929. Edison kept making his cylinders right up until the end of his phonograph business operations. In the summer of 1929 the old man was persuaded by his colleagues that he couldn’t swallow such a big dose of red ink as the phonograph was demanding. In the end, runs of cylinders were amounting to only 100 copies. Rarity eventually turns into value, if the product has a following. The acoustic phonograph does indeed have such a following. The vendor that, in the end, was able to pocket the bulk of my show money for his Cygnet horn, advised me that these original Cygnets were getting harder and harder to find.
    “People buy these things as investments,” he opined.
    “We buy them because we like the way these antiques sound, and because of the way the nostalgia for an era we missed makes us feel.”

Donley’s is not the perfect Phonograph and Music Box show. The keeper at the gate is an officious woman, one who does not go by “the customer is always right.” She prefers to consider the customer a pushy pain in the ass. She’s done the show for many years. She’s seen the numbers ebb and flow. Right now, the recession has dimmed the market for antiques in general. Every year, we hear rumblings about the stewardship of this particular show. The absences of Mark and Kurt are telling, I think. Still, barring bad news from academia, we’re planning on going back next year. This may be a high water mark in terms of cash spent, but there are still items on my list. (Including “Home Sweet Home,” Edison black wax ‘gold moulded’ 1515.) God forbid that I should develop an interest in music boxes or muskets. Next time, we’ll either camp in some sort of truck camper, or we’ll find a closer, better motel.