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Anyone catch The Antique Roadshow last night? Someone brought in a Weltron Spacehelmet to get appraised, they go for $200 in great condition. I've been hoping to see a spike in Ebay but you can still get them for around $150.00, Anyone remember the Weltron Robot that use to make rounds online in the early 2000s, who has it now?
I got this cool mid century player although I suppose all 8 track players are mid century. It's fun because you can be lazy and load up 5 carts at a time long before those rotating CD players did all that's missing is a remote but you can't have everything. One of the speakers is a little staticy so I trying to spray some compressed air into it and the straw adapter shot out into the circuits that are so intricate that I couldn't find it in there, I feel like a surgeon that left a sponge in a patient.
I didn't find it at Goodwill but that would have been a good segue, since I found this old Goodwill bag they use to distribute at Goodwill boxes around the country with their mascot Good Willy, they need to bring him back, or else I’m going to be him as a Halloween costume this year.
Just in time for summer is this grinchy Playtape 1200 player and 15 tapes in a handsome vinyl case, call me quaint but finally I can sit in the backyard with a Miller Lite on the rocks and catch up on the Laugh In 69 original cast album and the Theme from Flipper on the Various Artist tapes, and the best part of this system it is closes up and the vinyl case is designed for easy play with a slot for the tape on the side and volume and tape channel control. It’s fun but it looks like it was designed for Barbie but I don’t care I just may modify it with princesses and dolphin stickers to complete the illusion. 
This one is from the 2 halves make a whole collection I found last week, It’s a Craig 3403 player that was made for the listener on the go with its portability and it even sports a built in car jack that plugs into a cigarette lighter. This too is becoming obsolete, since I understand most cars don’t come with cigarette lighters anymore, I don’t have to worry since my car is from 1993, which I’m ok with since I’m not too crazy about most things made after the year 2000. Although one day when I’m bored I might stop in one of the remaining Radio Shacks left in the country and see if they have an adapter that fits into a car USB to turn it into a cigarette lighter so I can play it in the car.
I was a high roller this weekend and stumbled on to a moving sale and among the junk hiding behind a few boxes in the corner was this amazing Photo-Sonic fireplace liquor cabinet stereo. I’ve never seen one of these babies before but it was love at first sight so after playing coy I offered a few bills for it and the next day the Easter bunny dropped it off at my house and with a little Liquid Gold and super glue it was raring to go.
The liquor cabinet has one of the refrigerator switches that turns on a light when you open the door and the fireplace has an orange light that rotates like those cardboard fireplaces that were a staple in the 60’s. I’m a little curious on who made the Phono-Sonic Kornoette Stereo receiver 8 track player, I’m kind of hoping it’s a knock off from Wollensak but going by the sound probably closer to JC Pennys, I read somewhere else that they were brought in from East Germany of all places, I may have to christen the liquor part with some Vodka.
Been working on prioritizing and downsizing lately, I figure 10 copies of Fleetwood Mac Rumors is too much for anyone so now it’s down to 4. Also opening up every cupboard in the laundry room and every drawer in the garage filled to the brim with 8 tracks is excessive, in the old days it was nice to have a good source of music at a cheap price now even the most obscure song seems to be able to be found on Youtube. I don’t need thousands of tapes when a thousand will do just as well. But I did manage to find most of the crown jewels of my collection and have consolidated them for easy access, it was nice to unearth a few that I thought I lost or traded away, here’s a bunch of the fun semi valuable ones.
Here's a sight that use to be common but now is pretty rare. It's one of those faux alligator hide 8 track grab bag cases with a bunch of carts in it, and while it certainly cornered the Barry Manilow market I'm pleased there's a Tom Waits tape in the mix.
Back to case, I love the variety that runs the gamut of these from fake leopard to allgator the collective cheesy vinyl 70s period graphics that look like an offshoot of a Screaming Yellow Zonkers box (look it up). that's the trouble with style today, everything is too functional and either black or white I blame it on Apple, we need more William Leers and less Steve Jobs.
This week I went to a house that looked like it had been abandoned for years with a roof caving in and a garage floor covered in broken glass, most of the things were covered in a thin sheen of mud, with water damage was the rule. among the mess was a blue tarp in the backyard that covered the overflow of junk like a poorman's storage unit. The beauty of it was no offer was refused, not "no reasonable offer refused" they just wanted to get this junk out of here, I was happy I got a tetnis shot last year.
Anyway among the ruins was an 8 track player made by Roberts that weighed a ton and was so covered in dirt I had to scrub it down just to see the brand name. When I got home I pluged it in waiting for the circut breaker to click but instead heard a slight hum, with that I opened it up and dug out a bunch of small leaves and vaccumed the mess and brought up a toothbrush for the finer parts. Amazingly the rubber belt was still intact and spun the big wheel, so I attached it to a reciever and sounded perfect. I later researched that this was made by Akai. So the lesson is next time you find a starving dog on the road take it home and clean it up. You'll be happily rewarded.
