Collaro RC-1 automatic record changer

[grahamperrin]

When I last used it, probably in the 1980s, it worked fine.

From http://midimagic.sgc-hosting.com/changerv.htm for record changers in the war years:

… RC-1 push-type mixer changer also had a forerunner of the modern overarm. The entire crossarm hinges up to the rear for loading, taking with it the top half of the spindle. The records are loaded on the half of the spindle that goes up with the crossarm. This changer has the pusher in the spindle, actuated through the crossarm. It shut off after the last record. …

I have a vague recollection of contacting someone from Collaro (maybe someone at Magnavox in the 1970s) and being told that the RC-1 was their first record changer. Whether that's true, I don't know.

The cabinet is peculiar. Viewed from the front, it's a slight parallelogram – not rectangular – so I guess that it was home-made. For around a decade I used it to prop up the end of a bookshelf.

Videos at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0HKdH4S7kc and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG1f9M-fOqg show a much nicer cabinet that allows a good view of the changer. Listen to the slamming as records are thrown against each other by the sprung arms!

This evening I decided to pull mine out from under the shelf and take a few photographs. Please ignore the Hawaiian shirt in the background, the stylii strewn around the felt corners … and the dust! If I ever tidy the spare room, I might take photos or videos of the underside of the changer. The engineering, as I recall it, was marvellous. There's another photograph of an RC-1 at https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...61&postcount=4 thanks to record-changer.

Around forty years ago, the record that I most enjoyed listening to on this player was a 1948 recording of By The Sleepy Lagoon by The Melachrino Strings …

[unitaudio]

I imagine that wasn't cheap when it was new. I bet the mechanism is nightmarishly complicated. It has to be the oldest Collaro I've seen. There can't be many of those left.

Regards,
Paul

[wd40addict]

Don't forget the slot player as another example of Collaro wackiness!

https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...ad.php?t=41637

[RojDW48]

The ingenuity of early autochanger designers never fails to amaze me.

[Edward Huggins]

It's a brave Man that takes this on - a Collaro "Conquest" normally is just about taxing enough for me! Edward

[grahamperrin]

Originally Posted by wd40addict

Don't forget the slot player as another example of Collaro wackiness!

Yeah, whilst seeking patents (or patent applications) for the RC-1 I found a 1930s slot-loading talking machine. One of a number of talking machine-related patent applications, if I recall correctly …

[Techman]

This record changer brings back some very distant and early childhood memories.

As a child I remember being take to visit one of my many uncles on my fathers side. In the corner of the front room of his Hertfordshire council house was a large, dark wood radiogram. I remember it was a big old wide and square sectioned thing (although things often seemed much bigger when you were a small child). Being obsessed with such things as a child, I just had to go and lift the lid to look inside. I well remember the record deck with that 'gantry' arrangement over the turntable, I'd never seen anything like it before. I was told that the record player part no longer worked due to the pickup arm being broken. The story from my aunt was that one of my much older 'teddy boy' cousins had thrown a party and that a group of 'drunks' had fallen on it as it played (probably 50s rock and roll) and broken the arm.

I never knew what became of that radiogram or what make it was, but it could have been something like an RGD. I'll have to try and do a bit of research sometime and see if I can identify what make and model it was.

[grahamperrin]

Techman, that's an entertaining story about your cousin. Whoever fell on it must have been extremely drunk; the bridge across the turntable is strong enough to break the fall of a small horse.

Originally Posted by unitaudio

… I bet the mechanism is nightmarishly complicated. …

I found records of the British patents.



In order of appearance on the plate:

• 351195 Improvements in automatic stops for gramophones and like sound reproducing machines
• 366258 Improvements relating to centrifugal governors
• 366440 Improvements relating to centrifugal governors
• 339107 Improvements relating to gramophone motors
• 386882 Improvements relating to electro-magnetic devices for the interconversion of mechanical and electrical impulses, such for example as gramophone pick-ups
• 406311 Improvements in or relating to gramophones and similar sound reproducing apparatus
• 421575 Improvements in automatic gramophone mechanisms
• 421638 Improvements relating to automatic gramophone-record reproducing apparatus
• 439106 Improvements in and relating to automatic record changers for gramophones
• 454337 Improvements in and relating to automatic record changers for gramophones
• 460500 Improvements relating to automatic stop mechanisms for magazine gramophones
• 460501 Improvements in or relating to automatic mechanisms for magazine gramophones
• 460502 Improvements in or relating to automatic gramophone mechanisms

From HOLSTENSSON v. WEBCOR, INC., (N.D.Ill. 1957), 150 F. Supp. 441 (N.D. Ill. 1957) | Casetext:

10. The British Patent to Collaro No. 460,501 and the British Patent to Compare, No. 454,106, both illustrate bulky and complex record changer structures employing an overhead bridge structure from which a record supporting post hangs down. …

12. British Patent to Compare No. 454,106 is the same invention as that described in the corresponding Compare United States Patent No. 2,090,746 …

Patent US2090746 - Automatic record changer for phonographs - Google Patents

[RojDW48]

Nice work Graham - that makes fascinating reading! Roger

[grahamperrin]

From US2090746:

The sleeve 107 driven by the motor 103, as above described, is provided with a worm wheel 120 which engages with a pinion 121 loosely mounted on a main control shaft 122 which is rotatably mounted in brackets 123 on the upper side of the motor board 100. At the appropriate time, this pinion 121 is adapted to be coupled up to the main control shaft 122 so as to drive the same, and for this purpose the pinion 121 is provided at one end with a ratchet wheel 124 and on the control shaft 122 is fixed a collar 125 having mounted thereon a spring-controlled pawl 126, the spring 127 of which functions normally toy keep the pawl 126 in engagement with the ratchet 124 so that the control shaft 122 is driven. This pawl is, however, provided with a curved extending arm 128 which, at a certain point, is adapted to pass through an aperture 129 in the motor board 100 so that its outer curved surface bears upon the upper face of an arm 131 (hereinafter termed “the release arm”) pivoted at 132 on the underside of the motor board 100. When the extended arm 128 of the pawl 126 bears upon the upper face of the release arm 131 further movement of the arm 128 is prevented (see the upper view in Figure 21) but the collar 125 continues its movement slightly and so rocks the pawl arm 126 and dísengages the pawl from the ratchet 124. When the pawl 126 is disengaged from the ratchet 124, the whole of the mechanism is at rest, the motor 103 merely driving the pinion 121 idly on the main control shaft 122.

The most enjoyable part of being hands-on, with the changer removed from its cabinet, was the automation that began when the end of a record was reached. The relevant part of the patent is verbose, but words can't convey the smoothness with which the parts of the machine come together.

A portable

I stumbled across this, from GB494881 (A) - Improvements in or relating to gramophone record playing units (1938):



I wonder whether any were made and sold …