The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

These guys might hold the record for the most broken records at one time, documented on film:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6uhTX42Rrk

Free records:

Curt A wrote:Free records:

Granted this was 1929 when they couldn’t give that machine and records away...But dammit Stan and Ollie!

As for the Blind Boy Fuller record I’d be absolutely devastated if I broke my one record I have of his.

The Stan and Ollie had an explanation. Must be a Victor sponsored film... Just notice how well the victrola stands after the big fall, while the broken records seem to be all blue label gold band Columbias...!

Welp. Here’s my latest 78 casualty. I was going through a stack from one of my bins looking for something to play, I’ve forgotten I had a Little Wonder in the stack, it slipped outside the stack on to the floor and that’s all she wrote for that one!

I broke one of my favorite cylinder records today

I had taken it down to my shop to test it on a customers Edison standard. When I was getting my self set up to work on it, I went to move it up to the shelf....... the box was upside down.

David

I have over the last 60 years from time to time accidentally broken a few 78 RPM records. I can count on the fingers on one hand the discs I have broken.

I have owned a Capehart 400M Deluxe with the flip over changer that I restored about a decade ago. I have played many hundreds of records on this machine with no problem as the Capehart is very gentle with the records.

However the Capehart doesn't like warped records. Yesterday while playing a stack of 20 10" discs, a warped disc dropped when it shouldn't. The Capehart was unmerciless and the sound of the Victor record being devoured was truly frightnening.

I have a Bobby Darin Canadian demo of "Splish Splash". As I took it off the turntable to play another record I thought "Oh, I'll just set it here on the record box while I go and start the oven". Whilst in the kitchen I heard a crash, walked back to the music room and there, sitting as though nothing had happened, her butt on my record box, was my cat... staring at me like I was interrupting something important. On the floor was my Bobby Darin record but I now had two of them.

Amazingly enough I was able to superglue it back together and I can still play it on my turntable that I modified to play at 78rpm. AND only occasionally do I hear the 'tick-tick' as the stylus goes over the seam. I've never left a record out since.

Not many (probably under 5 in my lifetime), I'm horrified at the thought. Two I recall:

- Took a quadraphonic LP from it's sleeve in a charity shop to check it's condition, gently slid it out so the edge was supported by the palm of my hand. Snap! broken from the centre-out. I didn't put any pressure on it.
- An Original Dixieland Jazz Band 78. Was stored vertically, I gently lifted it out and it broke, concentric around the grooves.

And my cat knocked-over and broke an excellent condition Lois Armstrong Mack The Knife 78 a few years ago, before I got to play it.

I also have a Spanish pressing hmv which is split concentric by the lock grooves... Ready to make a coaster!