The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I'm not sure if this counts, but I pestered my Mom into buying a Victrola 210 for me when I was 12 (1972.) It was in pretty decent shape and commanded a whopping $65. The first one I bought with my own money was a Brunswick console (1976). That set me back $35. It's kind of funny, but things have come full circle for me and now $35 is about all I can afford.

Once again it is time to revive this thread to include new members. Please vote!

The poll won't work for me! I click '18 and under' then 'submit' and the next screen says 'the submitted form was invalid' and tells me to try again...? (On reflection, maybe I've already voted some time ago but forgotten...)

It would perhaps make for complicated data handling and of course repetition, but a second (directly linked rather than separate) question asking the poller's age would be really informative towards the state of things. Just a thought!

When you already placed a vote, a little "x" will appear behind the selection you once made. If the the x is there, then your vote was registered.

The poll question requires the first phonograph to be bought by the collector, when interpreted precisely. I did not buy my first phonograph, it was given to me as a Christmas present. Given that, I would have to be excluded from this poll.

Just to be clear about the connecting factor, does this poll ask about the first phonograph in possession or the first purchase?
Maybe a well-defined title would help to avoid possible uncertainty with some of our new members to poll. (e.g. WHEN DID YOU MAKE YOUR FIRST ANTIQUE PHONOGRAPH/GRAMOPHONE PURCHASE?).

Thanks WDC - in that case no, I haven't polled before.

Neither poll will let me vote, for some reason!

Orchorsol wrote:Thanks WDC - in that case no, I haven't polled before.

Neither poll will let me vote, for some reason!

me, too...

It seems that the voting button was switched off at some time. Too bad! Dear moderators, can its function be revived?

As with the Age Demographic thread, the voting button did not work, at least not for me.

When I started collecting as a ten year old in 1957 I did not need to buy. People were only too glad to give me their redundant gramophones and 78's.

The first machine I can remember buying would have been in about 1965 when my younger brother, then a Boy Scout, assisted at one of their jumble sales. Somehow he dragged home an HMV130 Table Grand which he had bought for ten shillings (that's 50p to young Kirtley) and sold it on to me for £1. This early excercise of entrepreneurial skill stood him well in later life.

The 130 was mechanically good but the case was in bad shape, so when a clean empty 145 cabinet came my way I made one good machine out of the two. The 145 is just a 130 with added record storage, so the "works" dropped straight in.

I kept that machine for over 40 years until a friend bought it. We are still friends.

As others have said, the voting mechanism is caput.

My folks bought me some kind of small 78 electric record player when I was a child, maybe 5 or 6 years old. The first one I bought for myself was a nice Zenith portable in my teens in the 50s; a green and white one with the black "Cobra" tone arm and electrostatic tweeters (what ever happened to those?). As so many did in those days, it would play 78s as well as LPs and I guess maybe 45s. A variety of contemporary at the time music players of various sorts followed over the years.

My first 78 records came from the generosity of family members, and then from the record store near where I lived. I would save my tiny allowance to buy them as a child.

My collecting habits started taking in antique phonographs only after I retired and had some time to devote to the hobby; so in my mid-60s.

Clay

FloridaClay wrote:As others have said, the voting mechanism is caput.

My folks bought me some kind of small 78 electric record player when I was a child, maybe 5 or 6 years old. The first one I bought for myself was a nice Zenith portable in my teens in the 50s; a green and white one with the black "Cobra" tone arm and electrostatic tweeters (what ever happened to those?). As so many did in those days, it would play 78s as well as LPs and I guess maybe 45s. A variety of contemporary at the time music players of various sorts followed over the years.

My first 78 records came from the generosity of family members, and then from the record store near where I lived. I would save my tiny allowance to buy them as a child.

My collecting habits started taking in antique phonographs only after I retired and had some time to devote to the hobby; so in my mid-60s.

Clay

Sounds like me. my earliest memories are of my brother playing Beethoven on 78's, and my first player was a 78 rpm machine with an electric motor and an acoustic sound "system". My first 78's were from a record store that still have hundreds in stock (if only I'd bought them all - some were "brand new" orthophonics!

In high-school I haunted Goodwill and often came home with 10, 15 or even 20 one-sided 78's, at 79 cents per - including some a Tamagno and some very early Carusos. Ah, thod golden age!