Amphion Cabinet Gramophone

Here's a project which may have some rewards! It's a cabinet gramophone all in pieces that needs to be cleaned and reassembled. I bought it for $50 - who can resist the challenge?!

The previous owner (now a retired senior) had acquired it when he was about 19 from his Grandfather. He decided he would take it apart and turn it into a cabinet to hold his LP records; but he was concerned about what his Grandfather would think of that and so he did it carefully and saved all the parts.

Before he had a chance to get much further on the project a job prospect lured him to the other side of the country and the cabinet and all the gramophone bits went into storage. Then life happened and he got married and had children and the gramophone cabinet conversion never happened, and it all just got moved around and put in storage through the years.

Then they retired and later they wanted to downsize to a smaller place to live and some things had to go. The old gramophone was one of them.

It's caked with old grease and needs a good cleaning, and I've been assured that all the parts are there, so there it sits waiting for me to begin the journey of making it play once again. I've been collecting old gramophone 78rpm records as I find them, to be prepared for the big day, and have sourced a place to buy the needles, but I haven't tackled the job yet.

I've read that the mainspring will be the biggest issue and if it's still working then everything else should be good to go. I'll put up another posting when it's all finished, but that won't be anytime soon!

Meanwhile if anyone who has experience with these things has some helpful tips and words of caution and encouragement I'm all ears! I'd also sure like to date it since that's eluded me even though I have a few Amphion product-line advertisements I found online which don't show pictures of what I have.