Phonoland

I volunteer at a museum that shows vintage communications gear. about 6 months ago, someone came in with a donation, a Tefifon player. I must admit that I never even heard of one of these before. It is a linear record player. It has an endless strip of plastic in a cartridge, like an 8-track player, but the surface of the strip has phonograph grooves and the music is played with a conventional cartridge. With a little work, we got it to play.

Mark.

Fascinating!

I see there's a Wikipedia page about this -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tefifon

I also found a number of YouTube videos -- https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Tefifon -- including one showcasing the "Holiday," model you posted about -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BRKr0XyYsI

The sound quality is very good.

Joe

Yes, the sound quality is better than you would guess, though the plastic record belt isn't as flexible as it once was and it wobbles a bit as it moves past the needle.

We actually were given two models, the one I showed earlier, which is a portable unit, and another one that is built into one of those European multi-band tabletop radios, but I don't recall the brand (Telefunken, perhaps?). The tabletop is in cosmetically good shape but will take some work to get going. Plus, it probably sat on a concrete floor for years, so the wooden bottom is deteriorated