Califone "Premiere II" record player from '61 & others

[radiotvnut]

Here's a Rheem-Califone "Premiere II" tube classroom record player that I recently picked up. When I lifted the motorboard, I was shocked to see a power transformer and an EL84 output tube. For the exception of the bigger transcription record players with the seperate 12" speaker, every Califone tube record player that I've seen up to this point had a series string chassis; so, this must have been one of their better classroom record players. All the date codes point to late-'61; so, this was likely made in late-'61 or early-'62. It needs the usual mechanical and electronic restoration that I'll get to in the near future.





I also picked up a Califone 1410 tube model from 1970 and this one uses a series string chassis (50L6, 12AV6, SS rectifier). I think this was their very last tube offering and my elementary school had this model during the '80's. I've already fixed this one and it works well. Here's a video of the repair: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pRHjJ7NsBsM



Another one on my list of things to fix is this Rheem-Califone 1430C solid state record player from 1972.



Lastly, I picked up this 1977 Califone with the light on the end of the tonearm. This one is marked "Califone International" and was made after Rheem and Califone split up. My elementary school also had some of these, along with the later brown and grey-cased versions.