[Hartley118]

That's a nice looking Deccalian you have there Lucy. Does it still play? I can understand your liking for its somewhat quirky 'contemporary' 1950s appearance. It was even exhibited at the 1951 Festival of Britain on the South Bank.

It's interesting because it was introduced by Decca around 1950 in order to play their innovative LP records (they were the first to introduce them into the UK some 3 years ahead of EMI). As Bill says, you need the red plug-in head to play LPs. The brown head in your pictures is for 78s. It's a good quality head - one of the best sounding means of playing 78s.

Decca changed the turntable on the Deccalian a couple of times over the years. The earliest models used specially designed turntables by BSR. Judging from the pictures, yours has the slightly later Garrard TB 3-speed unit. I think that was introduced around 1954.

The Deccalian is a good performer. It was popular with schools in the 1950s. Although its heads are heavy by later standards, they track well and record wear isn't unreasonable. Of course, as Edward says, they're not designed for stereo records and you'd suffer groove jumping and excess wear. The highest output heads have a green sole-plate and are wound with extremely fine wire which can break over the years. Rewinds are possible though - perhaps via this forum.

Value is a difficult estimate because it isn't a Dansette. It's better than that but doesn't possess the magic nostalgia. A good working head (known as the XMS) can fetch £60 on its own. Strangely, a complete Deccalian, complete with two working heads, working turntable and working amplifiet, may not fetch much more than the value of the heads, namely £120.

Best of luck with it - it's a nice piece of record player history.

Martin