Newcomb R-12 classroom record player from '56

[radiotvnut]

Here's a Newcomb R-12 classroom record player that I believe is from '56. It was an ebay purchase that was SUPPOSED to be working good and I paid a little more for these than I normally do, because these older burgundy cased Newcomb players are getting harder to find (these were probably all replaced 30-40 years ago; so, that's why not many are seen today). In fact, I see very few tube classroom record players on ebay anymore. A few years ago, they were all over the place. The most common school RP finds are the solid state Califone's from the '70's+. It's also getting to the point where people are asking stupid prices for these things.

I bought this from someone with only 4 feedback points (all from sellers) and this thing was packed very poorly. He did lock the tonearm; but, that's about all he did right. The record player was placed upside down in the box with zero packing material in the bottom of the box. For the sides, he used a couple of thin layers of bubblewrap. To take up the space in the top, he used what looks like some sort of basket weaving. The platter retainer clip was missing; so, the platter was flopping around inside the record player. When I fired it up, I had no sound and when I opened it, I discovered that the speaker wires were disconnected and the tubes were about to fall out of their sockets. Correcting these faults didn't help; so, either something was damaged in shipment or he was one of those sellers that considered "needle talk and platter rotation" as "working."

This unit uses a 3-tube amp (6V6 output) and a Shure ceramic cartridge (I'll probably replace the cartridge with a stereo cartridge). I'm not too carzy about the drive system in this vintage of record player because that's more rubber that has to be rebuilt. Fortunately, the case is in decent cosmetic shape. There are two Cornell-Doublier ceramic cased "Budroc" capacitors in the amp. The rest are disc capacitors.

[radiotvnut]

More pictures of the inside. I discovered that there was no audio because the speaker wires came loose from the speaker, again; so, I re-tensioned the speaker connectors so that they would make better contact. The only capacitor that I replaced in the amp was a leaky .047 uf Cornell-Doublier "budroc" white ceramic cased tubular paper capacitor and I used an AC safety capacitor. The cartridge is 3/4 dead and I'll replace it with a Pfanstiehl P228.

[WISCOJIM]

Originally Posted by radiotvnut

I bought this from someone with only 4 feedback points (all from sellers) and this thing was packed very poorly. He did lock the tonearm; but, that's about all he did right. The record player was placed upside down in the box with zero packing material in the bottom of the box. For the sides, he used a couple of thin layers of bubblewrap. To take up the space in the top, he used what looks like some sort of basket weaving. The platter retainer clip was missing; so, the platter was flopping around inside the record player. When I fired it up, I had no sound and when I opened it, I discovered that the speaker wires were disconnected and the tubes were about to fall out of their sockets. Correcting these faults didn't help; so, either something was damaged in shipment or he was one of those sellers that considered "needle talk and platter rotation" as "working."

I don't understand why you talk about the seller here like this, yet you gave him positive feedback on eBay. Doesn't that just reward his incompetency and put other people that read your feedback at risk when they may consider buying from this seller?

http://feedback.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAP...edbackAsSeller

.

[radiotvnut]

You are correct. In the past, I've been nice in order to prevent getting less than positive feedback in return. Now, I suddenly remembered that a seller can't leave a buyer less than positive feedback.

Today, I got a Silvertone record player and the seller took over a week to get it out from the day I paid for it. I could have forgiven the slow shipping, had he done something a little better than throwing the record player in an oversized box with no packing. He got neutral feedback and not so high DSR's. I'm done being nice to people who should know better.