The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Here’s a later Expert “Junior”. Two-Piece. (One-piece as it’s missing the speaker). It came with a wad of Expert advertising leaflets and letters from Ginn, quoting prices and explaining the use of the player. Needed as there are no labels, or decals to tell you what the various switches do. There is a card with hand drawn buttons marked, Treble, Volume and Bass. One letter has a detailed explanation of the 8 selector switch, mostly with filters for various frequencies and for tweaking the bass response. The leaflets are a mine of information and it’s going to take a while before I get around to scanning them.
Interesting to note, Ginn was reusing some of the names of his acoustic gramophones for some of his later electrical equipment. Junior for this player and Ensign for a cheaper speaker cabinet. Typically, there are some EXPERT letter heads marked, Established 1918 and others marked 1920.

Fascinating Chunny. Will be interested to learn more about these post-war models about which there seems to have been so little written to date.

Thanks for sharing this fascinating information. I am glad this treasure trove has found a good home. Is the gramophone up and running?

Well done Chunny. Several of us watched that auction closely and are so glad you won it! How much work is needed to get it on-song?

I paid a lot more for it than I thought I would, especially without the speaker but was glad of all the ephemera.
It's from 1950, fitted with a diamond stylus for playing LP's and the integrated amp is totally unique to this model. Simple design and beautifully laid out. Can't wait to get this going. I'm confident of bringing this up very slowly on a variac with only a few capacitor upgrades. I'll post a video when finished.
Comparing the Expert range from the 50's to the EMG range, Expert were way ahead with their designs and amp layouts. I suppose EMG were concentrating more on record sales whereas Expert relied on sales of their HiFi equipment. Ginn often gets a slagging for being just a business man, I think he was way more than that. All the letters between clients and Expert are written by Ginn, with some very technical information being discussed. The combination of E.M Ginn, D.Phillips and J.E Ginn should really have been ingredients for a successful business. Competing with cheap, mass produced competition would have been their downfall. Who would pay £75 in 1950 for a "Junior" record player. I remember my father paying £400 for our first house in 1967.