Portobello Road Market, London, 60 years ago !

[Dulcetto]

465061792_525028027043457_8683330464889468469_n portobello 1963.jpg (61.75 KiB) Viewed 546 times

Oh to have a time machine ! Portobello Road market London 1963 . I spy two G&T machines, one with travelling arm , and and 2/4 minute Edison phonograph with aluminium horn. Asking price was probably £5 each , which was the " going price " at the time. I can remember seeing adverts for phonographs in Exchange & Mart in the mid-1960's usually priced at £5 each , often including a collection of cylinders . By the 1970's though , prices had risen , for an Edison Gem for instance , £25 often being the asking price for a good example. My first phonograph at age 16 in 1971 was a birthday present , all working with horn and a selection of six cylinders , that cost my father £25 and a trip to Gravesend to get it ! I bought several Gems in the mid-1970's at around only £12 each from a local antiques dealer, usually because they had an issue of some sort , either missing horns or reproducers etc. Then I used to restore them and sell them to an antiques dealer in Glastonbury for £25 a time ! Before the return journey back to Hampshire , I would fill the car with fairground arcade penny machines , six for £90 from Sid Plummer's Emporium at Shepton Mallet ! Sid had hundreds of them which he must have bought from a fairground business , machines that were considered too expensive to convert for the then new decimal currency. I had a dutch buyer for those at £35 each ! Happy times ! For comparison, the average weekly wage for manual workers in 1963 was around £15 a week !

[52089]

I was in London frequently from 1985-1990 and went to Portobello when I could. I recall one phonograph dealer right at the beginning of the main market who had dozens of horns hanging up and many machines on tables. I don't think I ever bought anything there, but it was still fun to browse.