78 Player
I found this record player at a flea market in Sacramento, CA, and intrigued with its looks, bought it for $20. A little research told me that it is an early tabletop player from RCA, was made in 1937, was designed to plug into a radio, and cost $12.
The motor is suspended on four rubber grommets, and the original ones were shot, creating a horrendous hum. With new rubber, most of the hum has gone, but it is still not really high fidelity! It has a synchronous motor, which means one has to start the turntable revolving by giving it a push. If you push it anti-clockwise it will run backward, so this makes it one of the very first 'scratching' turntables. Incidentally, the tone arm weighs 160 grams, obviously designed to keep the needle in the groove when the room is swinging. I removed a 40-gram weight from the tone arm, and now the tracking is down to about 120 grams. It has a magnetic cartridge and uses steel needles. The knob at the side turns on the power and also acts as volume control.
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