Over half of the horned gramophones you see offered on Ebay and almost all those found in antiques arcades and decorator shops are recent copies made in India. Planet Trading whose Ebay page appears above are one of the few internet sellers who declare openly that they are selling reproductions- and at £44.95 they are offering a lot of reproduction for your money.
Collectors of genuine machines disparagingly refer to these reproductions as 'crapophones' and fume about the 'crime' of their mere existence but the real villains in the marketplace are not the makers but those selling these machines as genuine period pieces for prices in the hundreds of pounds. Don't get stung!
By all means buy one as a static item but don't risk playing good 78 records on them. This is because the arm and soundbox should swing freely across the record or the wall of the groove will be damaged by the sideways force on it. In the copies no attention is paid to tracking and the result is a huge risk to nice old discs.
If in doubt about what you are looking at; consider these five points;
1/ Nearly all the 'Bombay Fakes' have brass horns. Genuine brass horns are actually very rare items as brass was little used after around 1908 because steel actually sounds better as it resonates less 'metalically' when vibrated. After a century brass is not bright and shiny but at the very least dull if not verdigris with age. If it looks even new-ish- it's going to be new!
2/ The cases of some Indian machines are either hexagonal or circular. These never existed originally (with the exception of the circular Spanish Aerophone which is a very large and distinctive machine badged in its own right).
3/ Only one scarce model of HMV horned machine (the Model 32 of 1927) bears the 'Dog' trademark picture on its case in a yellow picture frame. All the Indian copies use a fake transfer derived from late HMV cabinet gramophones which used this 'framed' image. This alone tells you that the machine cannot be 'the real thing' as all other genuine horned HMV's bear the 'dog and gramophone' symbol with minimal background colour beneath the subjects and no frame whatsoever.
4/ Almost without exception, Indian machines have horn elbows made of two conical sections soldered together. This was never done in the past. An elbow should appear as one continuous curve from machine to horn.
5/ The 'horn era' ends in the late 1920's just as cast iron turntables are almost universally replaced by pressed steel ones. Although a late horned machine may bear a steel turntable with a sloping outer edge to it, the vast majority of genuine machines of this type have a turntable whose edge is vertical to the deck and not sloping. Certainly no HMV horned machines have turntables with sloping edges.
You may like to see all the styles in the Indian manufacturer's catalogue by clicking here;