Made in 1941 by Montgomery-Ward, and marketed through their Airline brand, this preceded the tape recorder, and enabled familes to record messages for loved ones far away, to record radio programs, or to listen to the radio, or to play records. It was 'the state of the art' home entertainment center of its day. It came with its own microphone, which sadly does not work, and because of the way in which the bakelite case has been made ... in one piece ... cannot be opened to replace the broken crystal. The knobs are obviously not the original ones.
I have had this piece for several years, having recapped the amp, rebuilt the idler and had the crystal cartridge rebuilt. The cartridge in the recording arm was in excellent condition and needed no attention. I have amassed a decent pile of blank discs over the years - they are expensive to buy new, as they are made these days for mastering music that is to pressed on vinyl. The ones I find are old ones that were expressly made for these kind of machines, and are sometimes to be found at flea markets, antique store etc.
When I first got this player I had dreams of converting my CDs into 78s, but do have to admit that so far that is still a dream. Nevertheless, it is a nice sounding record player.
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