The Talking Machine Forum — For All Antique Phonographs & Recordings

Last week I was approached by a corporate publication that wanted to do a story on my hobbies. I asked them "why me" and their response was that they heard that I had unusual interests. This got me to thinking, as I do not view my hobbies to be odd at all. I've talked to others and they told me that perhaps that I'm 42 and fascinated with certain antiques that was the hitch. I dunno. I've also noticed a lot of cross over from phonographs to similar interests with people. Ie: old radios and jukeboxes etc. So here are my questions to you:
-How old are you?
-What other objects to you like to restore and enjoy?
-What artistic endeavors do you entertain?
-Why do you love phonographs or the other interests that you have?
I've "met" some wonderful, helpful, kind and generous people on this forum in the short time I have been here. So please, share what you are about and what makes you tick. If for nothing else to help me feel more at peace with being 42 and tripping over antique restoration projects with every step...apparently it's "unusual". I have my reasons for what i do, and I'll share them and answer the other questions after a few others have posted. I just don't want to taint the responses. Thanks for humoring me
Jonathan

Ooooh this is an interesting one. So here's me:

1) I'm 29yrs old. Seems I'm a rare breed in this world.
2) I have done some furniture repurposing. Ex Turned an antique buffet
into a double sink or a desk into a changing table.
3) I knit. I used to be into photography. I've dabbled in painting.
4) I really got into the phonos about 3 months back. It was my husband who
suggested we buy our first but once we did I was hooked. I love the
excitement of finding them, seeing the change from a dull box of wood
to beautiful conversation piece, and most of all I like hauling one out
on my front porch and listening to records all evening. (Not sure how
much the neighbors like the last part )

1) I was born in 1972 but I still feel like being only 25.....
2) I also restore/repair and build Spanish guitars.
3) I played classical guitar when I was 'younger.' Now I'm singing in a chorus of a nearby city.
4) I have been attracted to the sound from the 'golden age of singing' (late 1910s to years before WW2) since I was a little boy. Thus I began to collect 78 rpm records even long before I aquired my very first 'real' phonograph in the past April. BTW, I used to play those 78's on a 'Gakken' toy gramophone.......I won't do the same thing!!!!

1. 53 (54 next October).

2. I've also restored several old reed organs and melodeons, a few pieces of old furniture &c....

3. I have also been active in fantasy art (see icon), playing and experimenting with musical instruments, and acting...

4. Hard to tell: I have a dim childhood memory of my grandmother demonstrating a toy model of a Berliner Gramophone; but all I can say for certain is that I've been fascinated by talking machines since I was a kid...

Bill

m0xiemama wrote:Ooooh this is an interesting one. So here's me:

Turned an antique buffet

Love, love, love your repurposed buffet!

Tinkerbell wrote:
Love, love, love your repurposed buffet!

I will second that. Very creative re-use.

(just don't show us any victrolas that have been converted)

-How old are you? 71

-What other objects to you like to restore and enjoy? Antique radios, music boxes, and mechanical clocks.

-What artistic endeavors do you entertain? Alas I have no artistic skills myself. Just admire those who do.

-Why do you love phonographs or the other interests that you have? Humm, that is complex I expect.

I have always been fascinated by mechanical things. Much to the dismay of my parents I was one of those kids who liked to take apart household objects to find out how they worked. I am still fascinated with how things work and how designs have evolved.

While I guess I am something of a technology geek in many respects (early internet and computer adopter, etc.--I wanted to lean what those were and how they worked too), I am also turned off by flimsy throw-away construction and planned obsolesce. I admire the craftsmanship and solid, made-to-last qualities of these 18th through early 20th century objects. I even love the smell of old wood, metal and grease. So many current objects seem so stirile to me.

And of course at my age there is an element of nostalgia for by-gone music and objects I remember from long ago.

There is, I guess, also an element of romanticism mixed in with the nostalgia. I like to imagine what hands may have touched these objects over the many decades and what they brought to people's lives and how they came to be abandoned.

Part of the romanticism is a part of me whose heart breaks at the thought of wonderful old objects being lost to history and that rescue impulse. Of course the down side of the latter is an penchant for putting far more into the rescue of things than their market value, but that is a problem mostly for my heirs.

Clay

Absolutely BEAUTIFUL buffet! Thanks for playing along folks. Interesting stuff! Ok here are my answers.
-As I mentioned I am 42
-I have also restored a few old jukeboxes, a slot machine, a number of pachinko machines, a late 1800's typewriter and a few radios.
-I am a photographer who is drawn to urban decay or any form of cultural entropy. I scuplt clay making items inspired by southern face jugs, tiki art and low-brow art.
-I love phonographs for a few reasons. The simplicity of their design, the music that was lost to that format, that never made it to digital or magnetic media. Similarly, the jukeboxes fascinate me in how they changed social history in this country, how they brought people together. I often wonder where my machines were placed and who might have dropped in their dimes and what songs they played for who...and why. A couple of stiff drinks helps this line of thought I feel when I preserve some of these items I am doing the disposable world a service. This is a feeling that truely materializes when a young person looks at a record and asks me what it is. The way their eyes light up after i describe how one works and then play it for them is magical. It seems there is a connection that is made in understanding something that cannot be made when listening to an ipod. Really....how many people can explain step by step how an ipod works and could MAKE one if they really tried?

Roaring20s wrote:

Tinkerbell wrote:
Love, love, love your repurposed buffet!

I will second that. Very creative re-use.

(just don't show us any victrolas that have been converted)

I saw one Victrola conversion that was perfect. The QRS piano roll Co. converted the case of a VV S-215 to a concealed lavatory sink- standing next to their grand piano on the recording room it was perfect. The best part was that the plate now read "Any radio equipment was not installed by the Victor Talking Machine Co...and neither was the sink"

1) I'm a young sixty. On my sixtieth birthday I swam a mile and I'm a substitute lifeguard at the local tennis & swim club. Anyone wanna race?

2) I was born a collector. If you look in the background of some of my posted photos, you'll see other things like bicycles, my "Duck Wall" (I follow Oregon football... Go Ducks!!!), YoYo's, and a few other minor collections.

3) I've always considered myself "artistic" and I sing in our church choir. My artistic outlet would be the restoration of machines and cabinets. I enjoy the challenge of a good project and the satisfaction of a job well done.

4) I saw my first cylinder phonograph while on a field trip in high school. After the curator played the first cylinder the rest of the class moved on to the next display but I asked her to play one more record. I was fascinated. A few years later, while in college, I bought my first machine, an Edison Home. I've been hooked ever since.