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This looks like a cartridge that was installed later. The whole cartridge slides out of the holder and the entire needle/cartridge are replaced as one unit. Originally, this probably had a 3V crystal flip over (via the white knob) cartridge.
Concerning the problem you are having, I've seen this several times and it can be caused by several things. These units are not very gentle on records; but, they should not chew them up on the first play.
1. A defective stylus tip can cause the problem. 2. The suspension inside the cartridge might be shot. Over the years, the rubber suspension can get hard (even on NOS cartridges) and this can cause skipping, poor fidelity, and excessive record wear. 3. The tonearm may be tracking at too much pressure. The recommended tracking pressure for an 89T is 6-8 grams. I have a small digital scale that I bought from Harbor Freight and more times than not, the tonearm is tracking much heavier than it should be. Usually, there is a counterbalance spring at the rear of the tonearm. On some tonearms, this spring can easily be adjusted to give you the correct tracking pressure. On other tonearms, the spring is in a fixed position and the only way to lighten the pressure is to remove links from the spring until you get the pressure down where it needs to be. 4. The tonearm may be tracking crooked and/or the tonearm may not be moving as freely as it should. The only way to fix this problem is to either straighten the tonearm or take the tonearm apart, clean it, and relubricate it.
Concerning 89T's, they were a very popular cartridge in institutional record players because they were cheap, robust, and easy to replace. Now, 89T's are getting scarce and expensive. In many record players that use this cartridge, I've been installing conventional ceramic cartridges and modifying the amp to give a little more gain to compensate for the lower output of the .5V Pfanstiehl P226 cartridges vs. the 1.3V Astatic 89T cartridges.
I suspect the amp in your record player is a single tube job and for best results, you'll either have to find a 3V cartridge, or add an extra preamp tube to your chassis.
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