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Just wondered if anyone would care to offer an opinion on where prices and avalibility are heading on these machines?
I have been collecting since 1994 but Victorian machines were never within my budget.

I passed up on a well restored Mills musical Chicago in 2001 for $6500, I regret it now, but didn't have the funds at the time!
It seems lke comparable machines are almost three times that price now, have they really zoomed that much in 13 years?

I am looking to acquire a nice restored musical wheel for the Centre piece for my collection after the holidays.
It would have to be shipped to the UK where such machines are virtually non existent?
I have heard it said that all the nice ones are in advanced collections and not going anywhere, and all the ones for sale are mostly lash ups full of repro parts??
Could this be true?
I was thinking something like a musical Chicago or a Dewey would be possible to source within my budget of $15k?

advice where to source such a machine from those in the know greatly appreciated!

I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for, but try this link. http://sfbay.craigslist.org/pen/atq/4774261751.html

It is absolutely not true that all the good uprights are in collections and that only pieced together machines now exist. $6500 for a correct musical Chicago was a great deal and worth probably twice that in 2001. The problem with uprights is being able to determine which are the good ones. There are lots of great machines out there and many more that have new cases, repro heads, replacement castings and on and on. You need to find someone who is knowledgeable, that you trust to buy from, otherwise you are rolling the dice and taking a chance. At the last VCA auction there were only 3 or 4 uprights that were correct, the rest all had problems ranging from slightly screwed up to a total mess. Unless you could tell them apart, you were taking a big chance. Good correct machines do come up for sale and are available but you have to be able to separate the good from the bad. A good Dewey or Chicago should not be too hard to find. The Caille on Craigs list is full retail or retail plus for an early smooth leg Caille.

Watlingboy

The one on craigslist sold at the VCA this past September for $8000.00 plus the juice and it had issues

Larry Debaugh and Johnny Duckworth have been good sources for correct upright floor machines for me
I currently own 29 uprights with two of them being doubles and the vast majority of those machines came from
those two. I alos was the buyer of the banner musical machine that sold ath the Harrah auction a couple of months ago

Thanks for the comments Guys
The caille looks Ok but really after machine with the cylinder Music box, but Thanks!

I have heard that KC coin op has done some nice restorations, I don't mind spending more with a dealer if its going to be "right" as hopefully its an investment too?

I currently own 29 uprights with two of them being doubles. I have had excellent experience with both Larry Debaugh and Johnny Duckworth. The vast majority of my uprights came from them. As far as pricing goes I have only collected four or five years and prices on good machines have been steady to increasing

Good uprights are still available. I recently purchased a pretty rare upright that was not screwed up or pieced together.

You need to get the word out that you are looking and willing to pay a reasonable price. Since you are in the UK I think the difficulty in finding one over there will be virtually impossible. You also have to be willing to pull the trigger when the right machine becomes available. If you don't odds are it will be snatched up by someone else.

You also need to find someone in the US that you can trust. There are a LOT of screwed up uprights out there.

I have been buying slots for over 30 years but consider myself a neophyte when it comes to uprights.

There are a couple of collectors / dealers who I trust and before I buy any upright I always get their opinion of it.

This has caused me to pass on some uprights and jump on others.

You need to be especially careful at auctions. Some good stuff shows up at auction but more often then not, machines with issues show up there.

If you come across a machine send me a private message and I will try to help you out.

In the mean time, try posting a message in the "Machines Wanted" area of this forum.