We Got a Victrola “Talking Machine”

Monica and I went to an antique mall on July 4th to look for an iron headboard and footboard for the bed and found this.  It was sitting open in the middle of one of their booths with a sign hanging on it that said, “Everything in this booth 50% off!”  I asked one of the guys that worked there if it worked and he said, “I think it does let me get the stuff for it.”  He went to the front and got a bag that had the hand crank, some needles, and the orginal instruction manual from 1912!  He stuck the crank in the side, gave it a few turns and flipped a small switch that mechanically operates a brake for the turntable and it started spinning.  We swung the arm around and sat it on the record that was on display and it started playing wonderfully!  It was kind of quiet so I looked for some sort of volume control to hear it over the mall’s speaker system’s music.  I opened the top two doors in the front and it was so loud I had to shut them again!  The sound actually goes into the needle arm and into a “horn” in the cabinet below!  By opening and shutting the doors you can control the volume from quiet to loud!  I think we broke one of the main springs – it has two – by winding it too much but it still works.  You have to crank it halfway through one side of a record to keep it from slowing down, but I got in touch with some people in Michigan that actually repair and restore these old phonographs.  I may take out the motor and send it to him so he can fix it and we can hand this down through even more generations to come.  It is very exciting and nice to have.  It also had three, leather-bound albums that held 8-10 records each.  We went to another antique mall yesterday and found three more record albums full of Victor Victrola records.  It is very neat to hear and see and talk about having.  We are proud of our really great find and we got it for less than half of what people ask for old, busted versions of the same thing!

Tags: Phonograph, record player, Victrola