The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I've had the USPS destroy two machines. The only thing I broke were my only two small sized Stollwerck records. I set a framed photo on the shelf behind the records which promptly slid forward and pushed the records off the edge, 5' to the floor shattering inches from where I was. I am still sick about it.

I had a wonderful Nipper and trademark gramophone display piece that was destroyed in an earthquake (not unusual in CA). Fortunately Joan Rolfs was able to to restore it it.

Here in the UK, in many stations we have automatic ticket barriers in train stations. The idea being that you put your ticket in the barrier in order to get on to the train.

When I had bought my very first gramophone and records, I was so proud of it that I took the lot to my grandparents to see. So I picked up my portable, and in my other hand I had a carrier bag of records. When I got to the ticket barrier, I decided to put the records behind the door so that I could insert my tickets and proceed through.

Unfortunately I placed them too close, so when I inserted my tickets the doors swang backwards, with a nice crunch where my records had been snapped in two. From then on I learnt to be a lot more careful with them. Thankfully they were only military marches and very common ones at that!

Guess I may as well chime in - I had 10 Little Wonder 5 ½ inch 78 rpm records. Was moving things around one evening and bumped something on top of one of the machines - before I could utter those words we are all familiar with I heard them hitting the floor. I now have 5 of them left. #@K#JL(

While replacing bearings in an Orthophonic reproducer, I sneezed, sending the bearings everywhere, and forcing the watchmaker's screwdriver I was using through the diaphragm. Oh well, that just meant the whole thing got a TOTAL rebuild after that. After all that, it is the nicest sounding Ortho reproducer I own.

A collector friend told me a funny story recently.
He arrived home from an auction with several machines and horns.
He pulled into his driveway and placed a nice morrning glory horn down next to his car as he brought a cylinder machine around back.
At the same time that he walked around his house, his wife, not realizing that the horn was behind her car, exited the front door and proceded to back over the horn with her car.
Actually it took several years of mourning and cursing for the story to become funny!

I've got a 2-part story, or should I say, a TWO PIECE story.

While working on getting an Edison Model C reproducer out of a pot metal adapter ring (to fit the reproducer into a large eyelet top-mount carriage) I froze the parts, and oiled them.........and worked..........and worked............and worked on it until..................................................... I got it out of the pot metal adapter ring. I set it down on the workbench, all proud of myself.

*THEN* it rolled down the flat of the bench, and fell towards the floor!

I lunged after it. Time stood still. I fumbled. Miss. I fumbled again.....I *thought* I got it, but it flew up into the air, in all of its cheaply made crap pot metal glory.....making a near perfect arc........then..............KA-BOOM! It smashed like a dropped wine glass. All over the floor in a dust cloud of pot metal and slag.


My best destruction story:

I was carrying a box of 35 electric Diamond Discs down a stairwell.....in the dark. I misjudged where the bottom step was, and started walking from the 2nd step from the bottom, and lost my footing. I embraced the box of records and formed a protective ball around them, as I fell forward, landing on my right ankle, and hearing a loud *POP*. I couldn't walk on it for nearly 3 weeks! *BUT* the records survived just fine!

Let's see: besides a couple of exploding wax Amberols, and several discs that were in the wrong place at the wrong time, I know I busted a couple of parts on my Columbia AT.

One was the notorious potmetal carriage tube, when I had almost got it off the shaft. The other was a gear that got mangled when I was trying to open the spring barrels....

My accidents can be attributes both to early learning (what not to do) and to clumsiness.

Once I was working on the case of my back mount Royal Talking Machine. It did not have any finish left on the case and I had just finished the last coat of shellac. I help the case on to corners to check all sides for any runs when it slipped and crashed on my workbench. One side broke, so I had to glue it and start over with the shellac.

Another time when I was cleaning the motor of my Edison Standard A I wanted to check if the governor was moving freely. The governor springs were pretty stiff, so I used a bit more force and suddenly all three springs snapped at once. They are really made for pull not for push

Andreas

All I have to say is.. be careful with edison cylinder players when you have a large morning glory horn attached to them. I bumped into the horn and it swung to one side... and pulled the machine over.. and landed on the floor.
no damage..just a few scuffs and me sitting on the floor for 5 min. in shock.