The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Aaron,

I do have an antique shop experience to share, similar to the disappointment in finding sewing machines, somewhat.

While driving 6.5 hours away, to go out on a first date (talk about desperation, right?) I saw a fleamarket in the middle of nowhere. The place was riddled with the same.......velvet Elvis and NASCAR memorabilia, so I walked out. Outside where three white canvas tents. It was raining. I walked into the first tent, and lo and behold......a floor model phonograph cabinet.......in the shape of (wait for it.......)


......an AUTOPHONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


My heart leapt into my throat. Then, I felt weak at the knees.

It was at the back of the tent, where rain was pouring in (sigh). I had to get by a few feet of junk to get to it. Now, with sweaty palms.

I lowered the front panel, fingers and toes crossed hoping to see that multi-cylinder playing mechanism in the shape of a Ferris wheel.....



and.....



AND>........


..,....DRAWERS!?!?!?!?!?

A few small drawers in the front, a disc record storage slot which looked like a compleat afterthought.. In the top compartment, under the lid, a 12" turntable, with an AUTOPHONE disc reproducer! On the back panel of the player compartment, a large brass plaque with the name "Autophone" in large brass letters!

Autophone, towards the end of their existence, must have had an excess inventory of mahogany cabinets. They plugged the crank holes, removed the "on/off" plunger rods, and stuffed a disc phonograph mechanism under the lid!

And THAT is my story for today!

Wyatt, your description at the beginning of this thread sounds totally normal to me! I might add: "In my dreams I wander from room to room. Looking, looking, looking. Where can I fit in just one more phonograph."



Clay

My wife said..."there is no more room for anything else!" I responded..."by God there is now. The couch is out in the garage."

Here is the stuff your dreams are made of, but this story is absolutely true... I know the luckiest collector alive. I would post his name, but not sure he would want the publicity.

While driving aimlessly in search of records, stopping at every antique shop he came to, he suddenly had the urge to stop at one of those nameless thrift shops that are usually filled with worthless junk left over from yard sales and defunct antique malls. The building was full of the typical stuff that I mentioned and he was on his way out of the shop, when he got an urge to pee. He found the restroom in the back of this junk filled building and as he was exiting, he said he looked straight ahead at an item that he had previously seen and walked right by...

The booth ahead was marked with a 20% off sign and nothing else appeared to be worth 80% of what they were asking...

The object looked vaguely familiar, but he had never seen one in person to know what they actually looked like...

It kind of looked like some sort of a phonograph related cabinet, but it was too dark to see clearly...

His heart kind of skipped as he approached the item, then he noticed a price tag that faced away from him...

As he turned it over in his hand he saw the hand written price of $130 and could not believe his eyes...

The horn was missing, but the reproducer with two U shaped tubes attached, sort of gave it away...

He couldn't wait to get to the cash register and peel out his money...

The clerk asked if it was in the booth with the 20% off sign and he was barely able to talk...

Do you want to leave it for later pickup, the clerk asked and he immediately answered "NO", if I have to carry it back on the roof, it's no problem...

After paying for the discounted item he rushed outside and excitedly told his wife of his fabulous luck...

What is that thing, she asked...?

An Auxetophone, he replied...

All antiques talk to you one way or another, phonographs just do it literally, my Model T is almost as old as most of my phonographs, and it definitely talks to me. It's squeaks, and rattles are a language all their own. Flea markets, that's were I end up with another project, that's were the current sorry condition IX, and yet another VV-50 came from just a week ago.

I thought I was the only one with these hallucinations! My particular fantasy is walking into an antique store, going to the section with all the old iron (tools mostly) and there it is. An original 1878/9 tinfoil - on the price tag it reads "$99, old lathe?". The search continues.....I am still convinced I am going to find it.

Oh, and I too find myself checking under the lids of every treadle sewing machine knowing that one day I'll find an Edison or Columbia treadle....or so I keep thinking.

The first step in recovery is admitting ones problems. I dont admit anything.

Ah, dreams, dreams, dreams….

Shall I speak of the wine bottle cylinder with a music box movement inside? (That dream was actually before I ever saw the beer-bottle cylinder). Or the squareish discs with their elaborately molded decorative borders? Or the hybrid disc/cylinder portable in its cardboard case?

Yes, they haunt me too...

Bill

In high school, I was another of those out-of-step rock and roll era kids collecting '20s audiophilia, and I was never shy about buying records in quantity. One morning my mother, who had made the mistake of encouraging me when I first expressed interest in old 78s (as a child of the '20s, maybe she was reliving her own youth) told me that she'd had the following dream the night before: she was sitting in the living room, and it started crawling with little bugs. Bugs everywhere, bugs on the walls, bugs on the ceiling, bugs on the floor, bugs overrunning the furniture, rank upon rank upon rank of little black bugs. She was horrified. But at last she screwed up her courage and looked more closely at the little bugs. They were all little round bugs, little round bugs with grooves on them and holes in the middle...

For Christmas the following year, I made her a craft project. I got hold of a junker 45, appended some black pipe cleaners for legs and antennae, and glued little paper eyes and a little paper mouth to it.

Wyatt,

Your story makes a lot of sense to me. It takes me right back to 1967, when I
was 11 years old. My dad and I had just been up the old rickety wooden
10-foot step ladder to fetch down my grandpa's Edison Standard model D machine,
which had been in the shop attic since fall, 1935.

We took the machine back over 2 blocks to my grandpa's house, with the dusty box
of 20 some records.

We oiled it up a bit, wound it up, and I put on a random 2 minute Gold Moulded Cylinder.
No horn. Horn long gone. All it was at that time was just the bare C reproducer and it
had a piece of kite-string as the link.

Never the less, the words were clear and I will always remember them:

"Fawn Eyes, Played by the Edison Symphony Orchestra!"

I still have that very same old worn copy of that record, and it still
brings back the very moment each and every time it's played. Hearing that tune
will always bring back the smell from that shop attic.

Chuck

One time I had a dream that my one and only Berliner record got shattered. I woke up, jumped out of bed and found that it was O.K. and this was all at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. I'm a 13 year old phonograph collector and I currently own one Berliner record. And I have 10 machines in my collection. I also had a dream that I found a Berliner trade mark with a broken mainspring at a flea market and I paid next to nothing for it. In my dream I completely rebuilt the motor and just as I wound it up and was about to play a record, my stupid alarm clock went off. It was Monday morning. It was a great dream though.