What got you started in the hobby?

[GrafonolaG50]

I started college in the early 70's as a Music Major-- ended up majoring in Special Education-- but never got too far away from music. While I was in school my parents bought a small weekend farmette in The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and started attending weekend farm auctions. When I graduated from college, I combined their interest in antiques and my interest in music-- musical antiques. My first machine (I still have it) was an English Victor model 130. Then an Edison Home, then a Victor E, then a Victor M, then Columbia BE...... You guys know how it goes

Brad Abell

I cannot wait to get my first open horned disc machine, then a Berliner, and so on

[Lucius1958]

I believe I have told my story before, but I'll repeat it.

My first memory of old phonographs is a dim one, from the early '60s, of my grandmother demonstrating a hand wound toy gramophone to one of my brothers and me ( I seem to recall that it was red, and a front mount). We also had a family collection of 78s, which I liked to listen to on our stereo.

As I always seem to have had an antiquarian bent, I kept thinking about talking machines. A family friend had a Victrola (possibly a VV-XI), which fascinated me: they even had one Diamond Disc in the record compartment, and I was disappointed to learn that it was not compatible.

I was given one of those Lionel kits, and tried my best to record on it, to no avail. My father obtained a couple of old Hathaway & Bowers catalogs for me: those were my Dream Books for a long time. I pestered my parents repeatedly to get me a phonograph...

I was not until I was about 14, and off at boarding school, that I got my wish. My folks gave me as a birthday present a battered-looking Amberola 30, along with a few BAs: I was ecstatic. (That Amberola, now restored, is still in my collection).

Shortly thereafter, one of my brothers was visiting a classmate in NY. This fellow's parents had an Edison Home A hanging around, and my brother persuaded them to part with it: he then presented it to me. (Bless him).

On my next birthday, I got the first machine I bought with my own money - and my first disc machine as well: a VV-IX in oak. These three machines remained the sum of my collection for some years.

In the '80s, I learned about resources such as APSCO, MAPS, mail auctions, the Compleat Talking Machine, etc., and began to expand...

and, here I am.

Bill

[Jerry B.]

I am so envious of Forum members that have family records or machines. You are all very fortunate. Jerry Blais

[pictureroll]

We lived in a house built in about 1920 in Oklahoma City and when I was 8 years old there was a Credenza in my bedroom with records. That got me started collecting 78 records.
Probably the one I remember most was Weary River by Rudy Vallee which I have had a copy of for low these 60+ years.

[Marco Gilardetti]

I am so envious of Forum members that have family records or machines. You are all very fortunate. Jerry Blais

For some reason, I have always been very fond of records. My mother took a note: that by the age of 3 I knew how to operate a record player. This happened in the 70s.

When I was about 10 we paid a visit to a pair of very old cousins of my father, two sisters who were widow by then and thus went back living in a same house. Among many other interesting households (like a XVIII century tower clock) they had a black suitcase covered in fabric on the floor. For some reason I instinctively associated it to my family's record player and asked what it was. It turned out it was an off-brand portable gramophone, that the two cousins very generously presented to me, struck by my unusual interest in that object. After all, they were no longer using it since at least a decade, they said.

So, despite my relatively young age, I grew up among 78 rpm records, cranks, needles and all those things. I had a lot of fun as a kid with my portable. And I still own it, and I'm looking forward to pass it to my nephew in the next 3-4 years. But really, Jerry, it is a very humble machine and nothing to write home about! You can rest assured that I'm more envious of the machines that you own right now, than you of my family heritage off-brand portable.

[edisonplayer]

When I was in the 6th grade there was a music teacher by the name of Arthur Pare.One day Arthur brought in his Edison Home phonograph to demonstrate for his class.That piqued my interest in the old phonographs and records.There was also another teacher named Bill Miller that demonstrated his Fireside for his class.Both of them got me interested.edisonplayer

[epigramophone]

When I was a child in the mid-1950's (yes I am THAT old) my parents and other relations were updating from 78 to LP. One of them gave me their old portable and some records. I showed an interest which prompted others to do the same, so by my teens I had been given several machines, including my aunt's Columbia bought new for her 21st birthday in 1934, and quite a number of records.

It was not until I retired that my collecting really took off, and although I shall be 70 next year I still enjoy the excitement of the chase.

[Lenoirstreetguy]

I've told the story of the beat up C250 Diamond Disc so many times that I don't want you guys to laugh, but here I go again. I was nine years old in rural Ontario. The parents of a classmate of mine and one of our neighbours had the Edison . Earlier that spring their woodshed had collapsed on it. The machine was summarily exiled to the back yard and spent the summer under an elm tree by their garage. The first time I saw it I knew it had to be mine. I went over day after day after school to play it al fresco. It was fate, kismet, karma: we were destined to be together and I was lucky that I owned two white rabbits...left over from Easter...which won the heart of the son of the Edison house. The deal was sealed and my father, grumbling the entire time, hauled the Edison home. It came with approximately 150 diamond discs all of which I still own. I was in heaven: the bunnies were carrot chewing bores compared to Albert Spalding , Marie Rappold, Ada Jones and the American Symphony Orchestra. It was a portal to another world.
And the machine? It's in storage and it still looks as if a woodshed had fallen on it, but I still own it and if I ever retire I plan to do one of those insanely time consuming restorations of a not particularly rare machine because as we all know, one's first love always has a special spot in one's heart.
I don't have a pic of the machine but I do have a pic of the original owner. He's Frank Young: the man with no hat at the back with the cute lady on his knee. She was the teacher at the school in the background and that was the school I attended many years later. Yes really. He had excellent taste in music too. He played violin and hence the number of Albert Spalding Diamond Discs . He really made me the music geek I am today and I can't thank him enough.

Jim

[Kirkwood]

As a kid, I was interested in "old stuff" in general, and I'm not quite sure where that came from. We lived in a very small town, Dad would go for coffee and conversation at the local cafe and leave me with the wife of the local appliance dealer/TV repairman across the street to talk about antiques and such. One day there was a Victrola IX perched on top of a dishwasher in the front of the shop, she was playing records as I got in. I was just entranced by this thing. I was maybe 9 years old at the time, and probably made a pest of myself in repeated visits. She eventually took the Victrola home with her to enjoy there. She later got an Edison Home phonograph, but no horn or cylinders, so it was a few years before I saw and heard one in action. Later that year of 1965 I got my first Victrola from a nearby barn, a very weather-beaten Victrola 1-1 (sometimes called a Victrolita). Dad helped me get it playing (somewhat) and I was so proud of that sorry little thing. We moved from that town not long afterward, and in Jr High school I met up with a classmate that was already collecting phonographs and records. We competed in finding records at the local Salvation Army store (I think 78s were 10 cents each or 3 for a quarter, this was in 1967 or so). We competed finding phonographs at auctions or rummage sales, bearing in mind that our limited finances and lack of information on the subject kept the hoard from getting too large. Parental permission probably had a lot more to do with that, in looking back on it.
I still have that "first" Victrola, although in truth it's my half original machine and half a parts machine to make up the one. It was more dusty than I realized when I took that pic.

[obmcclintock]

My wife and I were married in 1967 and there shortly after while driving through the Ozarks we stopped in a small mom and pop antique shop. I knew of a friend that collected old phonographs which peaked my interest so I asked the owner if he had any. He told me to look in a small box under one of the tables and I should find a part or pieces of one. In the box was a maroon gem in pieces as he said. I had no idea if it was complete upon initial inspection but I wanted it anyway so I asked him the price. He said that he had to have $15.00 for it. One must remember that it was the mid part of last century and $15.00 was a weekly grocery bill. He told me that the spring in it looked too small for the machine??? I did not know why he told me that as it looked like it belonged to the machine. I did not hesitate long however to buy it. When we arrived back at the motel I pulled all the pieces out of the box and luckily it was complete with everything except the wooden base piece. I used my wifes metal finger nail file as a screw driver and completely assembled it on the table in the room. It had an H reproducer and the horn was in good shape except that the maroon paint on the exterior was quite worn. It came with a cylinder and fortunately it played loud and clear once I figured out that is kept skipping on the 2 minute setting. That was fun and back then machines were just becoming popular with collectors and we all got some real buys!! I became friends with Ira Dueltgen, Paul Graham, and a few other serious yet very sharing collectors. Those were the days!!