Unusual finds in record player cabinets

[Peter.N.]

The first radiograms I repaired often contained boxes of needles.

Peter

[mickash]

TV and audio cabinets seem to be a common place to hide money. 20 odd years ago my brother bought a second hand TV (ITT, I think) Shortly afterwards it needed a minor repair, which I sorted for him. Tucked under the CRT I spotted some banknotes, 2 £20 notes. We split it between us. Not as much as others have found, but still a nice surprise!

I've found an amazing variety of items that young children have posted through VCR cassette flaps. Toy cars, coins, plastic soldiers, pencils, biscuits even a jam sandwich!

Michael.

[suebutcher]

I've seen several televisions with used valves in new boxes left inside the cabinet. Is that something servicemen did to prove they'd put in new valves?

[camtechman]

How about a dead brown mouse, stiff as a board, teeth grasping the live wire inside a double filter coffee maker/warmer that my local curry restaurant had ask me to service.

Job done but never ordered or ate there again !

[mark pirate]

I've found an amazing variety of items that young children have posted through VCR cassette flaps. Toy cars, coins, plastic soldiers, pencils, biscuits even a jam sandwich!

I was given a video to repair with a tape jammed in it, once the top was removed it revealed the remnants of a chocolate bar and wrapper had mangled up the tape round the heads.
I managed to clean out the melted mess and get it working, but the tape was obviously ruined.
The joys of children...

Mark

P.S. there were devices available to block the tape loading slot, does anyone remember them?

[regentone001]

Years ago I bought a Kaiser stereogram,the type with a cocktail cabinet in the bottom,the record changer was duff so I started to take the back off. Found a fiver on the floor,thought I had dropped it. I completed taking the back off and under the changer was £120 in fivers, 5 x £1.00 premium bonds and a nearly full book of TV licence stamps,remember those?. I asked a copper mate of mine what to do about it and he told me to keep it as I had bought it in good faith from a secondhand shop. After changing the deck it was a very nice unit.
Steve

[slidertogrid]

I have found various trinkets inside record players, costume type earrings and the like. I suppose if it gets dropped on to the motor board it's then very easy to slip under the deck and drop inside.
Years back I had a microwave in for repair, the complaint was that the turntable didn't revolve.
I found a dead mouse inside a bit of ducting, it had got stuck in a right angled end. Right across this duct was the turntable motor supply wires. it had chewed through both.
As to what killed the poor thing I don't know if it was electrocuted or just starved. it was well stuck though and had turned into a solid lump like coal.
The only way to get it out was to cut the body in half with cutters and extract each half from opposite ends of the duct.
I considered telling the customer but decided they probably wouldn't want it back if I did. so I kept quiet!
Ignorance is bliss...
Rich.

[GeoffK]

Not a record player cabinet, but a long time ago I found a Philips 8" extension speaker in a wooden box with the cloth bag cone protector on a rubbish dump behind houses. Took it home only to find hundreds of earwigs in the bag, managed to clear them out and the cone was still intact with just slight damage. I still have the speaker.

[IanBland]

Not inside a record player, but a boiler. When I had the ancient back boiler in my flat replaced, the water tank was removed from a large cupboard in the kitchen. When the plumbers had gone, I noticed what appeared to be some brown paper wadding wedged behind the cupboard's door frame.

As I pulled it out, I thought wouldn't it be nice if this was an evelope of money, but only idly fantasising as I normally don't get random good luck. It was indeed an envelope and contained £2000 in twenties.

Since the previous occupant had been dead and their estate surely settled for a considerable time, I applied the finders keepers principle.

Also, when I was a Chief Electrician in a West End Theatre, around 1990, we discovered a human skeleton down a very old drain. Which was nice.

[Herald1360]

Phantom of the opera?

I'll chance my luck now-found a useful lump hammer inside the (bent) front wing of a Shuvit I once owned. I still have the hammer

The only interesting find in a record player was the cheap Chinese soldering iron and reel of solder stuffed into the works of the EAR portable I acquired recently.

[Oldcodger]

Not in a bit of equipment, but does any EX GPO/PO(T) remember finding neatly grouped heaps of coins in a old button A/B coinbox, and know it was a test case by the investigation branch.

[mickash]

I've seen several televisions with used valves in new boxes left inside the cabinet. Is that something servicemen did to prove they'd put in new valves?

I've also seen this and always felt that it was because the engineer couldn't be bothered to dispose of the valve properly.

[emeritus]

I did find the makings of a mouse nest in my mother's 1950's RGD radiogram: mouse traps had already dispatched the mice. Speaking of chocolate wrappers, I still have a cassette recording of a 1969 John Peel session broadcast featuring Joni Mitchell and James Taylor where the start of one of their pieces is delayed while James investigates a buzz on one note of the piano, which turned out to be a chocolate wrapper in the strings.

[vidjoman]

I guess a Jukebox is a record player. I had one to restore some years ago that had a very strong smell of urine when it arrived. We put it under a tarpaulin outdoors for a month or so the help the smell blow away. When taking it apart we found hundreds of chewed walnut shells. Every paper label and speaker cone had been chewed to pieces and neatly stuffed into 2 cavity's behind some lights to make a nest. Also present was thousands of mouse droppings and the smell. A thorough strip and power wash of all parts with disinfectant helped remove the pong. Then to get replacement parts for all those damaged by the lodgers. Somewhere I have photos (non digital) so I'll add them if I can find them among the thousands stashed away.

[Radio Wrangler]

And there I was thinking ahead and assuming that jukebox must have been in a really rough pub

David

[Peter.N.]

On more than on occasion I found foreign objects deposited by children in VCR's that according to the customer 'just stopped working' and the same used to happen to car radio cassettes. If anyone remembers the Citroen CX it had an upward facing unit between the seats, ideal for sweet wrappers and coffee!

I also remember finding coins laying on the chassis/PCB of of old TVs having been posted through the slots in the back although strangely enough I don't ever remember one causing a short circuit.

Peter

[ms660]

Originally Posted by mickash

I've also seen this and always felt that it was because the engineer couldn't be bothered to dispose of the valve properly.

Speaking with my field service telly engineers hat on, old valves were sometimes left inside the TV if it was on a rental or a maintenance contract and the fault was of an intermittent nature and didn't show up on a visit, a valve might have been suspect so a new valve would be fitted on a "try that and see what happens madame" basis, if the same fault persisted after the visit and the real culprit was later found then the old valve would be fitted back in and the new one put back in the engineers van stock, a lot of service managers in the rental/maintenance game frowned up excess bottle usage by engineers just for the sake of it.

Most valves that were definitely duff had to be returned to the stores if the engineer wanted a new replacement for his van stock.

There was no proper means of disposal as such, not where I worked anyways, they ended up in the nearest bin.

Lawrence.

[Peter.N.]

I often put all the bits I had replaced in a plastic bag and took it back with the set, saved any arguments about what I had replaced - or hadn't.

Peter

[nigelr2000]

After reading this thread last night my first job on the bench was a flat screen wharfedale set, upon removing the back I discovered a pair of glasses, there are no holes big enough to get em in and anyway the arms were open so they must belong to the last engineer. Seems its an ongoing thing this discovering items in broken kit.

[newlite4]

By the rather flamboyant design of those glasses, I would guess that the previous engineer was either Tim Wonnacott or David Dickinson!
Neil