Hi Alan,

I took a ride up to my local thrift about an hour ago while I had a break from work, and I found something with your name all over it.

It was a Maganavox record player in a console cabinet, there was a door on the top right hand side that slid over to the side revealing the turntable part. I believe it was called Magnatronic, made in England, with speeds 16, 33, 45, and 78!

If I could have gotten it home and mailed it to you I would have...But it gets better...The price was.....

30 cents!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Wow Eletrogirl, thanks for thinking of me. The price was right, if it worked, and who knows what little it may have taken to fix it if it didn't?

It looked to be in very nice shape, and I believe they do test the electrical items out before they put them on the sales floor.

Unfortunately it was very large piece of furniture, and likely quite heavy. I would have no way to get it home. I could not get over the price though.

I did not realize that there were records that ran at a speed of 16!

They were not big sellers, the records were made for the record player supplied to Chrysler Corporation cars from 1956 to at least 1960, give or take. I think most of my record players play 16 rpm. Sometime in the '70s, Magnavox dropped 16 and 78 rpms. Here's an article about Highway Hi Fi:

also 16RPM was used for "Talking Book" records for the blind and educational purposes-like in schools for stories and such.16RPM wasn't used much for music recordings or the common market.

That's right, and the market was focused on car entertainment devices, and fidelity of 16 rpm couldn't have been that great. The attatchment I put in mentioned the talking book formats of course. The Highway Hi-Fi didn't even last but a couple of days past the 1956 models.