The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Being a retired marketing professional, unless you are targeting a certain age group, knowing the age of when you started collecting, is not relevant. Age is a moving target and it doesn't mean anything unless it can be related to something else. A person who started collecting at 18 in 2012 versus a person who started in 1962 at 18 are not differentiated in an age only poll. To me, the year seems more important than the age.

A more suitable poll would be what year did you start collecting or got the bug. I would be interested in knowing what year people got interested rather than their age. Was the 1980's or 2000's a more popular decade? Or was it a particular event that jump started it, like the introduction of the CD in 1982? Did the resurgence of LP's in the last few years spark a fire? How many members started in the 1950's or 1960's when wind-ups were being dumped routinely in garbage bins or donated to the Salvation Army in favor of the new Hi-Fi revolution?

For the record I got hit in 1983 (29 years old) when my sister handed me an empty VV-XI cabinet and thought it would make a great wine cabinet. I saw the Victor logo and thought it would be fun to find the guts instead. After that, I needed records and then I was hooked.

Thanks for listening.

"The bug" is likely present, but dormant, for a long time for many of us, as it was with me.

I have been interested in how mechanical things work and have had an appreciation for good craftsmanship all of my life. Gradually over the years I began to apprehend how things were moving more and more to cheap, fast construction and designs never intended to last for a long time (with exceptions of course).

That led me over time to begin to really appreciate objects from an age of using natural materials to make things and "over engineering" to build things that would last and a real pride in one's work. And for me there is often more "warmth" and elegance to designs of yesteryear than many more contemporary ideas of design.

Maybe all this is just a way of saying that "the bug" is often not born fully grown, but evolves over time--influenced and feed by many things.

Clay