I should mention that years later I went back to my sister's friend's house to
see what phonograph it was that got me started. It was a plain little oak
Pathe' X!
> From: [email protected]
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Tue, 31 Jul 2012 11:15:58 -0400
> Subject: [Phono-L] How I started
>
>
> I have a sister who is 17 years older than myself. When I was ten years old
> (in 1967), she took me with her to visit one of her high school girlfriends
> who was married. In their dining room was an oak upright phonograph. Even
> at that age, I loved music and had never seen anything like it before. I was
> all over it checking it out. Up until that time, I was a comic book nut and
> had hundreds of them, even comics from the 1940's that I had found. That
> Summer, two things happened -- my mom threw away my comic book collection
> when I was gone to my aunt and uncle's for the Summer, and I bought my first
> phonograph, a Columbia 'Symphony' at a roadside flea market for $2.00 Within
> a couple of months, I bought an Edison 'Home' Type C with an all-brass
> Hawthorne & Sheble 'daisy' horn and a boxful of cylinders for $25 and I all
> but forgot about comic books. In those days, phonographs were quite easy and
> inexpensive to come by. I often picked them out of the trash or had people
si
> mply give them to me. We were living in Buffalo, NY at the time. I
> remember more than one rural antique store that had proper barns just stacked
> with cabinet phonographs -- take your pick $4 each. External horn models
> were a bit more -- ranging between $25-$65. Information about phonographs
> was very scarce and I had only limited access to books such as 'From Tinfoil
> to Stereo', 'The Fabulous Phonograph', and Jim Walsh's and Aida-Favia
> Artsay's columns in 'Hobbies' magazine. In 1969, I saw an Edison 'Standard'
> for sale in the Buffalo paper's classies. I called the number and it was
> Paul Baker who was three years older than myself. We talked on the phone for
> a couple of hours. Paul, who has mentored by John Perschbacher, became my
> mentor. We would spend hours rebuilding phonographs and playing records. We
> would drive around Western New York looking for phonographs when Paul only
> had a learner's permit! Anyway, that is how it started for me. Paul and I
> are no long
er
> close, also because of the hobby. I now have 45 years under my belt and
> have loved every second of it, except for when I have had to sell machines,
> or had friends pass away. I'm a reasonably smart fellow who requires a lot
> of brain input and this hobby has certainly provided that. Not a week goes
> by that I don't learn several new things, or even seen something I've never
> seen before. I love it, and am grateful to have this wonderful interest!
>
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