Anyone know where to get an Opera motor? An acquaintance of mine wrote to tell me his wife found a phonograph at a garage sale and he wanted to know whether or not it was worth fixing. It is an Edison School cylinder phonograph. Why can't I ever find those garage sales???? The problem is - no motor. It uses the Opera motor, and if one were found I imagine it would cost what, $2000? John Robles From [email protected] Thu Dec 28 07:14:20 2006 From: [email protected] (Larsons) Date: Thu Dec 28 07:14:39 2006 Subject: [Phono-L] How I get started Message-ID: <000801c72a92$d992d920$211db...@larson09d7ewvu>
I remember reading in the public library & stumbling upon some photographs of external horned phonographs and being memorized by their appearance & dreamed of acquiring one some day. At the age of 10, my great aunt died leaving us with her Brunswick floor model. It was the same phonograph my father listened to growing up on the farm during the 20's & 30's. I spent hours listening to the same old records with my Dad. It was then I began my addiction. I scanned the newspapers & Salvation Army for more phonographs & records. By the time I was 13 in 1966, I had an Edison Standard D, two Edison Disc models, a Columbia Grafanola, and a Cecilian table model. By the time I was a freshman in High School, I had formed a phonograph club with two other guys. That year, my Dad bought me an Amberola 30 completely disassembled for a dollar. I had no idea how to put one together. I only worked on the repairs for the cabinets. It was that same year a man had purchased an Amberola 30 for a dollar & was published in Popular Mechanics with a detailed account of how he restored the unit. I followed the instructions and had it running again. Unfortunately when I went to college, I sold all but the Standard D & the Brunswick. Three years ago I inherited My uncle's Columbia BK which has been in the family since it was first purchased. I heard it play during my collecting years & had never seen such a pristine condition unit like this one. I could not believe it when my Aunt knew how much I appreciated it so as a child and wanted it to stay in the family. The addiction was back, especially after discovering ebay. The garage & basement are now filled with phonographs and have gained many new friends through this. It's great to be back. Randy Larson From [email protected] Thu Dec 28 07:43:50 2006 From: [email protected] (Andrew Baron) Date: Thu Dec 28 07:44:28 2006 Subject: [Phono-L] Frozen moments In-Reply-To: <[email protected]> References: <[email protected]> <[email protected]> Message-ID: <[email protected]> This is beautifully put, Robert. I feel exactly the same way, even after 32 years of exposure to early records. When I give my annual presentation to the high school history class I try my best to impart this very feeling. Careful selection of the records goes a long way toward reaching hibernating imaginations. The current h.s. generation grew up in the computer era; being fed information, images, sound and content without having to imagine any part of the media being presented. The imaginations are there, but may be less developed than earlier generations where the 'theatre of the mind' was given more chance to be exercised. For phonograph records, the part that happens in your mind is obvious. For radio, well, consider the following, which I read somewhere along the way (or something approximating this): A young boy was asked, around 1950, whether he liked the old Lone Ranger program on radio (which he could still tune into if desired) or the new one that had just recently been introduced to the marvelous medium of television. The boy replied that he liked the Lone Ranger on radio because the pictures were better. Andy Baron On Dec 27, 2006, at 10:10 PM, Robert Wright wrote: > (...With every record, from since I can remember, I've gotten the > sense of peeking through a window at a frozen moment in another > place and time, and cherished that like magic. I remember staring > into the grooves of any given favorite and wondering, amazed, how > this inanimate, cold piece of material, this squiggly line pulled > under a sharp rock, was capable of making me feel things so > intensely. I still feel the same way.)
