The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Congrats on your "new" Columbia and getting started on a very enjoyable hobby.

Go to the "Links" page on this site and open the "Repairs, Parts, Dealers, Sales & Auctions" section. There you will find links to most of the major antique phonograph repair and parts people.

Also do a search on this site and you will find lots of threads dealing with cleaning up finishes, etc. From the pics it looks like all you may need for the latter is a good cleaning with Kotton Klenser or GoJo (the kind with no pumice!)--very easy to do--followed by some good lemon oil polish.

As I gather you are new to the hobby, a word of caution that the steel needles your machine uses should only be used for one record and then replaced. They are readily available in bulk and fairly cheap. Using the same one over and over will damage your records.

Clay

Lucius1958 wrote:It's a Model 540 (introduced 1924); original price $175.00… the number on the decal must be a factory error.

Bill

Sorry about the error on price. I was mistaken. The Harmony branded version of this machine sold for the lower price.

I haven't my copy of "the Companion" at hand.

Luckily mine came with at least a dozen needles. I played a couple of records today but we really need to get the tone arm replaced since the one on there is out of balance due to the break and it started to weigh heavy on the records causing them to slow down so I just stopped playing them. Darn, back to the crappy 'ol iPod.

What do you do with the spent needles? Toss 'em?

Thanks for the tips!

Toss 'em.