It's a wind-up ...

[Michael J]

... Columbia No.201 Viva-Tonal Grafonola portable gramophone player, dating to about 1930, working, in general very good order, and it's my new favourite thing.

It does have a broken horn/arm mount junction, but is definitely repairable. I am setting about the necessary cleaning, servicing, etc. It's really loud. I very much doubt that it has been used at all in the last thirty to forty years or so.

 

[Patrick Dixon]

Where is the picture then? We need pictures.

 

[Cesare]

We've got a very similar portable model, and they are great. Ours has some 1930s jazz dance numbers to go with it, and it's good to take with a picnic (obviously one involving picnic rugs, wicker baskets, champagne etc)

 

[Michael J]

Where is the picture then? We need pictures.

Pictures here

 

[Michael J]

We've got a very similar portable model, and they are great. Ours has some 1930s jazz dance numbers to go with it, and it's good to take with a picnic (obviously one involving picnic rugs, wicker baskets, champagne etc)

I have Handel's Messiah on Columbia Masterworks 12" discs - eighteen of them! - in two volumes. Conductor Sir Thomas Beecham, various featured artists, and the BBC choir, recorded in the Central Hall, Westminster, in 1927. It is the full release but still not quite all of the service.

Picnics and the like is exactly what this is for.

 

[Tony L]

I've got one too!

Mine is a HMV Model 102, quite a late one from around 1956 IIRC. It works a treat and I have a stack of about 30 old jazz 78s; Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Fats Waller, Dorsey Bros etc, so good fun!

PS Picture eight years old hence the totally different system in the background!

 

[Pine Marten]

Mine is a HMV 103 Table Grand, circa 1923, with original Exhibition no 4 soundbox, sounds particularly good with pre electric recorded discs, of which I have rather too many.
Was going to post a pic, what a total PITA!