What is Your Most Incredible Machine Story?

MusicMan93 · by **MusicMan93** » Sat Jun 11, 2016 6:13 pm

About a month ago, I happened to be visiting a friend (who knows nothing about vintage electronics) who got an RCA 45-EY-3 for $20 at an estate sale. This thing looked like it had been through an earthquake AND tornado - the case was covered in filth, had water damage to all the labels and appeared to be nothing more than a scrap machine for parts, at best. Certainly not a performing unit...

Telling my friend that her unit wouldn't work (and being probably the most common 45 changer model by RCA), I suggested that she create an eBay listing for it so she could at least send it to someone who could strip it down and use parts from it. She reluctantly agreed to do it, and we then met up with another friend for lunch and left the player at her house.

Well, when we came back to her house after lunch, I heard music being played (and really loud, "full-sounding" music at that) coming from downstairs. Lo and behold, we walk in the living room and her little brother is there listening to a 45 on the EY-3! When I asked him how long he had been using the player, he said "About half an hour, it works great! I love the sound!"

I just about fainted from shock!

Does anyone else have a similar, incredible story of vintage machines that just won't give up, even after decades of misuse? The EY-3 is currently being sent out for a full cleaning and amp/cartridge upgrade, but remains my most incredible story of the "Little Player That Could".

Phonoboy · by **Phonoboy** » Sun Jun 12, 2016 5:18 am

Nice story.

DoghouseRiley · by **DoghouseRiley** » Sun Jun 12, 2016 1:28 pm

I think I've mentioned this before. In my early twenties (1960s) I managed a radio/TV/ domestic appliance store, part of a now long defunct chain. We often had big part exchange offers on TVs. The sets we got in came in at no value as they were always dogs. My engineer, was quite knowledgeable and could sometimes get some of these old sets to work. We had a deal with the barber across the road to whom we sold them. He'd display one in his shop for his customers to watch with a price tag on it. He usually sold a couple a week. Between the three of us we only made a few pounds.
The sets that my engineer decided were too far gone to be worth repairing, he took once a month a dozen or so at a time, to the the local tip. The van was weighed in and out and we were charged for the weight of the refuse.
He had great delight in chucking these sets out of the back of the van onto the rubbish heap, whist the workers stood round and watched. One month he went into the office to pay for the refuse and he saw one of the TVs he'd thrown out of the van the previous month, up on a shelf in the weighbridge office and working. Expressing his surprise, the foreman told him that they always tried out any of the sets that weren't damaged on impact when he chucked them out and this one they found actually worked!