Pneumatic Cashier

[larryJ]

I remember all that.  It brought back a memory, though, of the sixties when I returned home from the service  to find myself broke, divorced, and on foot.  I bought a '52 Buick from a guy for $50 that barely ran.  The memory was that there were holes in the floorboard big enough to stick your foot through and you could see the road going by.

Another car memory was push-button starters like on the '49 and '50 Mercury's and on the Chrysler/Dodge car as well.  In fact, I think all the cars had them then.  Now they are back in some newer cars although it is a different system.

Did anyone have a "light bar" that was attached to the car radio or the tape player?  These light bars were rainbow colored and flashed with the beat of the music.  

Larryj

[W. Gray]

The 1956 Chrysler Corporation cars (including the defunct DeSotos, Imperials, and Plymouths) had a push button automatic transmission, which Chrysler called Torqueflite. An area on the dash to the left of the steering wheel held the buttons. One pushed button "r" to backup and then pushed "d" to drive forward. My granddad was a longtime Dodge fan and he drove a push button Dodge around Howard when the 56's came out.

For some reason, he refused to buy a car from Garrison Dodge in Howard so he went to Kansas City and bought one there. When the salesman asked how he was going to pay, my granddad pulled a wad out of the top pocket in his bib overalls and told the man to count out what he needed. He traded in a 1954 Dodge that had a strange semi-automatic stick shift that had a clutch but did not require depression of that clutch when shifting or only required using the clutch part of the time. That might have been called Fluiddrive or Gyromatic. If anyone knows how this worked, let me know.

The same 1956 Chrysler cars introduced 16 rpm record players as an option. I have heard the needle arm had to be extra heavy to keep the needle tracking properly while driving but that caused excessive groove wear on the record giving it a short life span. A record side played for almost an hour but the records could only be played one at a time and could only be bought through a Chrysler dealer. At some point, Chrysler switched to having over sized 45 rpm records. These units would play 15 records one after the other.

Around 1962, Chrysler gave up on the record players but it did not take long for the 8 track tape systems to be offered. I never was involved with 8 track but the 4 track, which replaced the 8 track, could be less than desirable. A song would be in the middle of playing and then fade out because it was nearing the end of the track. You could hear the tape mechanically changing to another track, which took what seemed to be a long time, and the same song would then fade back in on the new track and finish.

[larryJ]

I think you might have the 4-track and 8-track portion backwards.  When I moved to SoCal  and was working in the record store, we sold 4-track tapes and later the new 8-track tapes came out.  At least, that's the way I remember it.  The difference between the two was the doubling of tracks providing a better quality stereo sound.  I also remember that there were those who emphatically said tapes would never replace LP albums!  I never experienced the record players in cars, but I can imagine the problems with that.  Even the earlier tape players would "skip" if you went over a bump, or hit a pothole as the laser would be thrown off momentarily.  

I remember owning a 1962 Dodge Lancer with a push button transmission.  It was a terrible system as there was no safeguard against pushing two buttons at once.  If you happened to push R and D accidentally at the same time, the linkage would lock up requiring a tow to the shop and ten dollars to have it unlocked.  I finally learned how to do that myself.  

Larryj

[W. Gray]

I think you are right about 4 track tapes coming before 8 track. Makes sense. And, it would have been the 8 track cartridge that I started with and was disappointed in.

There are still people who say vinyl 33.3 records are far superior to tape.....

Did you ever sell 7 or 10 inch reel to reel tapes?

I almost purchased a 10 inch unit for home use not realizing that the the 7 inch were coming in as replacements. I was more into music as a relaxation than I was into television. Show tunes and country & western were my favorites. I finally got two 7 inch units with reverse to play and record the manufactured tapes, and make long continuous music reels, which I traded with other folks who had a similar interest.

That was back when no one seemed to care if you recorded a tape. I had those units until I got a CD and cassette tape stack unit sometime in the late 80s.

Nowadays, I listen through headphones on the computer.

[Wilma]

Hey!!!  What's wrong with good old television?  I have two of them going all the time and I can still move around, do everything that needs to be done or read a book.  I am not glued to one spot with headphones and the voices are company.  Since most of my TV is re-runs of old sitcoms which I have seen a dozen times already, I don't even have to watch the screen.  How is that for freedom?

[larryJ]

We did have 7 inch reels, both blank (recordable) and pre-recorded.  At the time after my Army service, when I was living alone working for peanuts and living on pennies, I still manged to buy blank reel tapes.  I had a recorder given to me by my former room mate when he was drafted into the service.  I had a good stereo system, also inherited from someone, and there was/is a radio station here in LA that played nothing but oldies from the 50's and 60's.  Having no money to spend on anyone or anything else, I devoted my time to recording all the songs that station played.  It was difficult to do without getting commercials and commentary included.  Then, I had to make sure that I wasn't recording a song twice.  I had a file card system as well as a notebook denoting songs and artists (cross-referenced) as well as the year it was recorded.  I went to the bookstore and bought books on rock-n-roll to help look up songs and artists that I didn't recognize.  

What happened to all this?

A few years later, a friend borrowed my tape player to record some of his own music and ruined it somehow so that it never worked again.  He failed to make good monetarily so I lost my tape recorder and a friend.  By this time I had probably 40 to 50 reel to reel tapes of music and no tape player.  I couldn't afford to buy another, so the tapes went into a box and were stored in the garage.  The last time I saw them, the acetate was beginning to get brittle and would probably not play anymore. The big names back then were Sony and Roberts and Akai.  When I was working in the Hollywood store, we had soundproof rooms in the radio/TV department that housed the tape players.  I could load a pre-recorded tape on one of those machines and blast the music and no one could hear it outside the room.  We did this to demonstrate how great the sound was to someone who wanted to buy one.  I always liked the Roberts player better, but the one I had was a Sony.

Working in the record store, I bought or was given many record albums.  To this day they are still stored in cabinets in the family room and I had a Garrard 2000B turntable to play them on.  The Garrard finally gave up and I had albums, but no player.  When my kids were small, we used to have music appreciation by playing all kinds of music and they loved the march music so they could stomp around the house.  A few ago, I bought one of those small cabinet looking players that plays cassettes and CD's and albums, so I get to listen to my albums again.

Having studied music and worked around music for so many years, I like all kinds.  I was always an Oldies fan and then my daughter decided we should like country for a while, but I sometimes like to sit and listen to some classical or Jazz.  

Ranting again!   You got me started.

Larryj

[W. Gray]

Wilma,

Nothing wrong with your setup. I was just reminiscing that at one time in my life I was more interested in music than in TV.

Nowadays, I listen to music on headphones when I am at my computer and watch TV with the wife on a "theater system."

[Wilma]

Somehow you guys got me interested although I don't have any interest in such things.  The simpler the better, I say.  But can you top this one?  I have a Frank Sinatra 78 rpm Christmas Album.  I don't have anything to play it on anymore.  The old wind-up Victrola that we used to have, I gave to one of our kids when my husband died.  Her kids had more fun with it than ours did and now she can decide which one should have it.

[W. Gray]

Wilma, a 78 rpm album would seem to be several 78 records in a bound album.

Don't know how you kept it intact after all these years; I never had a 78 rpm record that did not get shattered, usually with a lot tears.

You may have something that is worth a few bucks.

[larryJ]

I also have a few 78 rpm records and used to have a player to play them on.  Most are classical music.  I think they would only be valuable as an antique as players would be hard to find and even if you had one, the quality of the records wasn't real great.  On top of all that, most all the music has been transferred to different media, i.e., tapes, CD's.  There is a record store, a small mom-and-pop type store that sells LP's and they have 78's, but they are framed and hung on the wall.  I would have to look it up, but I doubt there is much value to those records.  

The same holds true for large collections.  For example, a company put out a series of albums that were the original recordings of some of the early twentieth century composers.  These concerts were recorded on Edison style wire recorders and later put on vinyl.  While I was working at the record store, we had the whole series.  They did not sell and were discontinued.  Our stores had listening booths so that you might take a demo record into the booth and listen before buying a new one.  When a record was discontinued the demo record was marked "99 cents" and put into a bin for sale.  I bought the whole set from my store and still have them.  Value?  Zilch.  I doubt if many know they even exist.  They are the Welte series of original composers playing their own works.  The sound quality, as you might expect, is poor and hard to listen to.  But not everyone can say they have a complete set of Welte editions.  

Records that might be of some value are bootleg records.  I have a couple in my collection.  They are of dubious value.  Why? Because "real" bootleg records have no pictures or liner notes on the album covers.  The music or content is suspect because the quality is poor.  One of mine is supposedly a Bob Dylan album that was recorded during a practice session before making an album.  The problem?  Because the album cover is blank and there are no notes or print of any kind, there is no way to prove that it is Dylan.  It kinda sounds like him, but it is poor quality and you really can't be sure it is him.  But, the guy who gave it to me swore it was real.

Larryj