HMV record player, 1950s: details and images

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1.		The arm and cartridge playing a record. The cartridge could be turned over to play microgroove or coarsegroove records. At that time, it was common to use sapphire styluses as they were cheaper than the longer lasting diamond type. The entire unit is covered in a mock-crocodile skin finish, which was typical of the period.
2.		Close-up view of the cartridge and arm of the player. The cartridge is made of Bakelite and the whole unit turns through 180 degrees vertically to use either the microgroove stylus (for 45/33 rpm discs) or the coarsegroove stylus (78 rpm discs).
3.		His Master's Voice trademark and the Royal Warrant device. Note that the Royal Warrant states 'the late King George VI'. King George VI died in February 1952 and Queen Elizabeth was crowned in June 1953. From this we can deduce that this unit was produced in the interregnum following the death of George VI.
4.		Overview of the turntable and arm mechanism. At the time, the small turntable seen here was very common. 12-inch turntables did not become generally common until the 1970s. Note also the single 'Tone' control in addition to the Volume control.
5.		At this time, a single tone control was normal. Separate Bass and Treble adjustment did not become common until the late 1960s. The single 'Tone' control was only capable of adjusting the treble end of the frequency spectrum and produced fairly crude results.

Rotations and views

A selection of views from the interactive rotations, to view the whole set of rotation images you can download hmv.zip (7MB) which contains all 36 images.

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