Another two-side changer found

I found out about another record changer that played both sides of the records.

It is the Thorens CD-50, and it is a drop changer. Here is a photo:



This changer has a push-type spindle similar to the spindle on a Collaro/Magnavox changers made after 1962, with a balancing disk on top, similar to the one on the PE-Rex A. But this whole spindle and disk assembly rotates for playing the bottom sides. The pickup head in the arm turns upside down to play the bottom sides.

I have not been able to find out if it has a one-side mode. There is a slide switch next to the tonearm rest position, but I do not know what it does.

Here is a YouTube video of one in operation:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vgsloOKK-EY

That makes 8 different designs for two-side record changers I have come across (excluding jukeboxes):

1927-1928 - 2-Side HMV Automatic Change Gramophone - plays manual and slide sequences - 2 turntables
1929-1949 - Capehart Turnover - plays manual and slide sequences - record basket and ring
1935-1957 - Lincoln 30 and 50 - plays manual and drop sequences - record carrier and inverting turntable
1938 - Garrard RC-100 - plays manual and drop sequences - Segmented spindle, ejector arm inverts record
1941 - RCA Two-Side Magic Brain - plays manual and drop sequences - forked tonearm, no long spindle
1941-1946 - Thorens CD-50 - plays manual sequence - inverting headshell, spindle turns stack
1946-1954 - Markel 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75 - plays manual and drop sequences - wheels rolling on turntable
1962-1966 - Fisher Lincoln 60, 70 - plays manual and slide sequences - record carrying inverting turntable

Only the Markel 72, 73, 74, and 75, the Lincoln 50, and the Fisher Lincolns could play 33 and 45. A late version of the Capehart could play 33. All of the rest of these played only 78 rpm records.

Thanks--was fun to watch it work--question--do you know how they accomplished the top "turntable" going one way, while the bottom went "the other" ? Two motors ?? Ron Rich

No, I do not know. But if they had used two motors, they could have stopped the one that was not being used.

Thorens was fond of using gears in its drives even into the late 1950s. So I would not be surprised if several drive shafts and gears carried the power from the lower turntable to the upper one.

I also know that the other Thorens changers of the 1940s and 1950s activated the pusher spindle through a linkage in the overarm. But I find it amazing that a pusher spindle could be activated while it is rotating. I wonder if they used a ratchet wheel like the ones in the 45 changers.

What I really want to know is how you loaded the records on it. Did the spindle come out, or was the top hinged?