These systems are very interesting. Fabricated with cheap plastic materials they don't last too long ---well, some them have lasted for 35 years now, as plastic of yesterday may be better than that of today, with the scheduled obsolescence so much spread around. Different types are to be found as per different toymakers. The airport toy you have pointed at looks pretty similar to the Wachtower phonograph, with a linear tracking system. Others I've seen have a plastic tone bar that rotates as a normal tonearm, that has a steel point at the end. It follows the grooves while little yellow metal (brass?) strips cleverly designed at the end of the tone bar run across the record, act as electrical switches, pushed by the tone bar movement. At the end of the record, the device stops, with the needle engaged in the runout groove. Pressing a button releases the tone bar up off the final groove, while a wire spring moves it to the beginning, and the brass stripe switch starts the motor again. The needle is lead into the recording as the records also have a run-in groove.
The recordings are vertical, hill-and-dale system. The needlebar is in permanent contact with a plastic cone by its end, just at the upper side, opposite to the needle, just in top of its tail. They produce a bad quality sound, but a very high volume.
The records are a little marvel, in colour translucent plastic. They have a wide center hole, looking as a small 45rpm single. The speed is fast, some 90rpm or so, if I remember well. I tried to play them in my turntable, but the tiny size made it impossible to track with the tonearm. I had to disengage the cartridge and hold it in my hand to play the records!
One of the toys I have is a real reduced scale gramophone with diaphragm, tonearm and horn, which can play these records, as well as other shellac toy records. Mine was a dummy example, but constructed in a way that it was easy to modify it and convert it in an usable player. The real and only challenge was to use the dummy toy soundbox and convert it in a real thing, adding a diaphragm and a stylus bar, which I did. Still the sound didn't satisfy, and I'm in the semi-abandoned project of remaking it in a better way.
Another trouble point was the connection between the tonearm and horn, with an enormous gap which I'm trying to improve, adding a tiny flexible pipe forming an airtight conduit between the horn and the back end of tonearm, inside the connection. Very difficult!
The soundbox is prepared for lateral recordings, as a standard gramophone, and I'm also squeezing my brain to make an elbow connector allowing it to be installed in the perpendicular position to play these tiny vertical toy records.
If I finally succeed in making the tiny soundbox, I could either used the elbow to install it in another position, or make another soundbox for vertical records anew.
Later I will add some photos of these toy players and records for your entertainment and curiosity satisfaction! (I'm now out from home...
)
.