HMV Auction Haul "As Found"

[StarTMachine]

Yes a lovely buy, but I can't say portables do any thing for me much. Recently I was invited to tea with a collector who had hundreds and hundreds of portables just stacked up self upon shelf in every room of his house. I don't want to offend anyone but what is the point?

I think if you have a portable then use it. Take it out on a picnic and enjoy some music, good food, may be a glass of good wine with some good friends. Isn't that what they were made for.

[HisMastersVoice]

While I don't have the desire to collect portables myself, I can see why someone might want to. They are small, relatively inexpensive, easily stored, etc. Why someone might collect something and what it was made for dont always go hand in hand. For example, telephones were made to be connected to ones house and talked on, but I still have a cabinet full of them that I enjoy looking at, and occasionally bring them out to tinker with or demonstrate for guests.

[2Bdecided]

Yes a lovely buy, but I can't say portables do any thing for me much. Recently I was invited to tea with a collector who had hundreds and hundreds of portables just stacked up self upon shelf in every room of his house. I don't want to offend anyone but what is the point?

It's hoarding. The collecting instinct gone just a little bit too far. (Or further )

I think if you have a portable then use it. Take it out on a picnic and enjoy some music, good food, may be a glass of good wine with some good friends.

I do exactly that when appropriate, and it's amazing how much people love it.

I love portables because
a) they bring colour to the collection (apart from horns, few gramophones are that colourful)
b) they are sometimes quite ingenious in fitting a lot of mechanics and acoustics into a small space
c) apart from the needle scratch on all that must play with the lid open, the best portables sound as good as most table models and many larger machines
d) they are portable! (you already identified the benefits of that above - but even the ease of moving them from room to room is a bonus).

Small phonographs are portable too, and amaze people even more. Unfortunately wax cylinders don't travel as well as 78s, and I've never heard a small phonograph that sounded great. Fun as a novelty, but you need a larger model to get stable speed IME.

Cheers,
David.