The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I 'appeared' 3 times on the local Public Radio station's Sunday morning program. A friend (he had 3 jobs) from work was the host. We played discs and cylinders on my Brunswick porto and Fireside, plus took calls from the listeners. My host cautioned people about calling only to ask "What's it worth?" , and he followed through by disconnecting the few who asked just that ! I eventually received one legit offer for records: a small Classical collection (maybe 1200 discs) in exchange for a particular Paul Whiteman record. A good trade, methinks.

All I remember saying, several times, was an admonition NOT to throw away 78s. Please give them to anybody, was my advice.

Edisone wrote: All I remember saying, several times, was an admonition NOT to throw away 78s. Please give them to anybody, was my advice.

Sound advice if I ever heard it. It's always worth taking on a collection - even if you discard most of it later because it has little value, there may always be a hidden gem in the midst!

Thinking back on my very first experience with the press in 1963, the reporter made tons of mistakes. He said that my Columbia BKT was "the first" phonograph to play cylinders, rather than "my first." In the photo of my Columbia AB there was a Concert cylinder that was cropped out of the published version, but the caption read that the machine "played the finest concert music." In the caption accompanying a shot of my LU-37 Diamond Disc it said that records cost $1 apiece. That was the original price. I was bombarded with people offering me DDs for a dollar. I wouldn't pay more than 5c at the time. But it wasn't a complete waste, I actually did get some fine machines through that article.

In my earlier post I forgot a TV appearance in 1966, on a local 15 minute show during the nightly news. That got me some fantastic finds. The phone was ringing at the station before the segment even ended.

On a related but off-topic note, I was very often interviewed during my career in the wine business in the 1970s and 1980s. I got very used to being misquoted. The worst was an article in Wine Spectator Magazine which utterly distorted what I had said about why I had quit working for a particular winery. But in the end, the misquote made it sound like I had left on strong principles, in a dispute over pricing. It wasn't true, but it made me sound like a hero. At first I was shocked and appalled but then I decided I really liked the error. And I especially loved it when my former boss called me in a typical raving fit demanding that I insist on a retraction. What a pleasure it was to say "f** you" at that point, after six years of utter misery in his employ. To this day some people still compliment me on my willingness to quit a high-level job on principle.

I've been in my town paper once, so nothing major. The locals were baffled when they saw that their was a high school student collecting phonographs, because It isn't the most popular hobby in my age group.

I did get annoyed when I read the article myself and found how many mistakes they made. And, just like any other newspaper interviewer, they asked the value of the machines.

http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk/new ... ticle.html

Well there's the first article about the Japanese visit - I didn't realise when I spoke to her on the phone that she'd use the pun in the title. There's also a few cringy moments where the poor lady had a random quote from the CLPGS member which seemed to add nothing to the story. I was told by the photographer that the poor lady was ringing everyone under the sun to get a quote

I told her not to mention value too, and she did which is also good

I made my TV appearance for the first time by appearing on a Nationwide TV quiz show at the age of 6 (three more TV Quiz show appearances since then), but it's definitely not because of my hobby!

I got two interviews on Korean Hobby magazine (they were Sister-and-Brother kind of magazines, actually, so, no big deal) for my Phonograph/record collecting when I was 15 years old, and later, I also appeared on two Movie magazines. They were mostly concentrated on my blog (now closed) specialized in history and antiques; 78s and old films.





On the other hand, one of my phonographs - The Japanese Victor Victrola J1-50 - was featured several times on TV documentary episodes and a movie as well.

There is a rare Columbia record which contains a speech of Sohn Kee-Chung, the Korean Winner of 1936 Berlin Olympics Marathon (more info about him here; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sohn_Kee-chung), and One of the big producer at that TV documentary series got a copy of that record in a flea market. He thought that it was a major discovery (which is actually not - it is definitely a scarce one, but I myself have it, and I know at least 10 people who has it), so the Network decided to show about the along with the segments about the exhibition on Sohn's life which was conveniently going on at that time.

The Network, of course, have some modern equipments for playing 78s, but they didn't have any 'Contemporary machines from that time' to play that record 'more properly', and somehow, the producer contacted me from my YouTube channel, as I uploaded a video about Sohn, and also some couple of videos with Phonographs on my channel around that time. They wanted to borrow the phonograph from me, and I made it shipped to the TV station. It played the record, and also the second side which contains a song about Sohn. I gave the operating instructions for them since none of the people involved on that , but I forgot to mention about changing the needles after each playing! As a result, the final passages of second side sounded really, really awful.

After the episode was over, they gave a small credit for me. That's how my Phonograph (not me!) got the first TV screen debut. And after that, the Documentary team borrowed this machine for about 5 more times whenever they need a scene for a phonograph playing certain 78rpm record. I got tired of lending this machine to anybody else after a record I gave them to play got cracked when came back to me, so I told them to find some others for their needs. And now they are using those Indian crapophones with LPs, obviously a prop in their basement!

After that, I made this phonograph appeared on a comedy film, set in a Korean radio station of the 1930s. I gave them a Backhaus record for playing, but in the movie they dubbed a Glenn Miller on that segment - what a transformation!

The History Channel asked me to sell one of my phonographs on a new show called "Real Deal".
I'm sure you'll recognize which item it is in the second link...

http://www.donpresleyauction.com/auction.html

http://www.donpresleyauctions.com/view- ... l?start=12