"GRAPHOPHONE COLLECTOR"

Here are all of the pictures that appeared in the Springfield, Massachusetts Sunday Republican 'Rotogravure' section on February 24, 1963, about my then two year-old hobby. Many people in those days found the idea of collecting old phonographs to be very strange!

I had the date wrong on the Columbia Washington A, but in those days there was little information to go on. The connecting tube to the horn was pretty ridiculous and the machine was not in mint condition. Still, for $17.50, including a gutta percha reproducer, morning glory horn, and floor stand, it seemed like a pretty good deal! As for the Diamond Disc, I have no idea where the reporter came up with the "forerunner of stereophonic sound" comment -- it certainly wasn't from me. The last sentence in that caption caused problems. The $1.00 figure was what I said the records cost when new, but many people thought that's what I was willing to pay for them. I was bombarded with calls. (In those days I wouldn't pay more than 5 cents for any disc, or 10 cents for any cylinder.)

Though it was cropped out in the published picture, the original photograph of the Columbia AB showed an Edison Concert cylinder box just to the left. The reporter obviously assumed that Concert cylinders played only "the finest of concert music." I must not have played "Bill Bailey Won't You Please Come Home" for him.

This was my first experience in being misquoted in the press, but unfortunately not the last. (In fact, the most recent was just a month ago!) What I told the reporter was that this was MY first machine that played cylinders, not THE first. An important difference.(I was very upset about this error but my mother convinced me that no one would care about that little detail. It still bugs me today!)

Ah, more press manipulation! The reporter insisted upon including a tie-in to modern times, even though I thought this was a complete waste of space. It was also completely untrue that I was "an avid modern stereo fan." If it didn't wind with a crank, I didn't play it. My mother was even more unhappy with the inclusion of this picture than I was. She was very embarrassed by it because the very cheap quality of our new "1962 model" stereo was all too evident in the visibly flimsy construction of the cabinet.

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