The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

I bought a Little Wonder album with a full compliment of records in it this past Sunday. Each record appears to be unplayed. Just because I thought I should play the records, seeing as how I paid for the privilege of doing so, I put a few on the turntable of an Orthophonic Victor. WOW, these are really nice little records. Excellent volume and very nice bass. Not what I expected from toy records. I have played Little Wonders before, but as 90% of them are, they were badly worn and sounded lousy. Really nice ones turn out to be some very decent recordings.

I have a few Little Wonders in my collection they are often mistaken for children’s records but they are (mostly) not. I do have some LWs that are children’s records but mostly they are just digest versions of regular songs. I wonder how many members here have the special players for these CD sized records?

Everything you ever wanted to know about Little Wonders on one website: http://www.littlewonderrecords.com/index.html

AmberolaAndy wrote:I have a few Little Wonders in my collection they are often mistaken for children’s records but they are (mostly) not. I do have some LWs that are children’s records but mostly they are just digest versions of regular songs. I wonder how many members here have the special players for these CD sized records?

Are you referring to the Little Wonder Talking Machine ? It was an unrelated product designed for hill and dale records.

Some of the old phonographs were small tinplate machines made for use on vacations, in spare rooms, etc. Little Wonders were actually intended as a cheaper alternative for people to hear the latest songs on their phonographs without paying full price for 10" records. We easily forget that a 75-cent record cost the equivalent of around $15-$20 today. A $150 Victrola was a major investment.

VanEpsFan1914 wrote:Some of the old phonographs were small tinplate machines made for use on vacations, in spare rooms, etc. Little Wonders were actually intended as a cheaper alternative for people to hear the latest songs on their phonographs without paying full price for 10" records. We easily forget that a 75-cent record cost the equivalent of around $15-$20 today. A $150 Victrola was a major investment.

Yes. Consider that a 1925 Model T Roadster sold for $250.00.

Here is a link to a great Little Wonder website. Merle Sprinzen runs this website, but she also has a nice book on Little Wonder records.

http://www.littlewonderrecords.com/

Amazon.com has one used book, but it is quite expensive.
https://www.amazon.com/Little-Records-I ... 785&sr=8-3

It was originally a Mainspring Press book and they no longer publish books. I do not know if it is available in an electronic form or not.