Hello From Vero Beach

WFLIMusic

New Member
Hello AK forum member. My name is J.P.. I'm originally from Long Island, New York and currently live in Vero Beach, Florida.

I recently came into the possession of a storage unit previously owned by what I would describe as a meticulous Audiophile and avid collector of vintage audio equipment. There are boxes upon boxes of stuff that hasn't seen the light of day in decades. Some of the older equipment I can't even find information about through web searches. Amazingly, most of it is in pristine condition and the previous owner was very good about labeling anything that was problematic.

My hope is to use this forum to educate myself on all this unique and rare audio equipment. I will also share in the adventure and delight for enthusiasts over the next few months by posting "what I found today" pictures and videos as I start cleaning out the unit. It will be slow going at first until I have enough room in which to work, but I will do the best I can.

The gentleman that owned this unit before me lived into his late 80s. He proudly served our country in the 1950s. He was a lover of listening to and playing classical music, a builder of model train sets and restoring classic cars. It's my hope that by sharing the process, all the work he put into preserving this equipment will have not gone to waste.

I look forward to interacting, learning from and sharing with all of you on here once I get a better understanding of the appropriate areas of the forum to begin posting.
 
Hey! Thanks for the warm welcome. I've had a look around and I'm still not sure where my thread belongs. There's certainly some very high quality vintage items I'm coming across, but a lot of it is just interesting or obscure. Vintage Gear doesn't seem like the right place, and separating each new item I come across into types of devices i.e. turntables, tuners or speakers doesn't seem like the way to go until I come across particular specific questions on each item. Can I get some opinions about where the best place for a new thread about 'what I found today' belongs? General Audio Discussions? I'm eager to get started!
 
That would be a good starting point. If you know a brand of an item --put it the brand category section. Ex--Fisher Forum , Simpily Sansui...etc....
 
I'd be game for meeting you somewhere in Vero for a cup of coffee and answer any questions you might have.
 
Welcome J.P. to AK. I am up the coast here on the Island where we explore space, the Space Coast. I hit that GoodWill in Vero once and a while. I got a lot of good vinyl out of it until the record store opened up across the street. I heard from a number of people about a guy who has a warehouse full of brand new unopened vinyl from when all the record stores made the switch over to CD's, could possibly be the same guy. If you have questions about somethings value Dollars and Sense would be the place to post an item with some pics. If you want to try and sell an item you should become a subscriber and post it in Barter Town. If you want info on how to repair something or restore it look in the manufactures threads. Their are quite a few very helpful people who know a lot about old gear. Sounds like you have an interesting warehouse to go thru.
 
[QUOTE="I heard from a number of people about a guy who has a warehouse full of brand new unopened vinyl from when all the record stores made the switch over to CD's, could possibly be the same guy.[/QUOTE]

It's an interesting story about the vinyl. He kept all the records in a separate storage closet that had climate control. It was the first thing I salvaged and dove into. There were about 25-30 short boxes of records in total all together. That's quite a bit from my perspective, but I'd venture to guess that the 'warehouse full' rumor can persist and this probably wasn't the guy. I remember that 2 boxes in the very far most corner were damaged by maintenance workers and it pissed me off to have to throw them out. He stacked them all the long way 1 high in the least cost/space effective way possible making sure that none of them had any weight on top that could possibly damage them. I think he just did it that way because they were his pride and joy and he wanted to access the songs he wanted to hear when the mood suited him.

I catalogued the 7" records first looking for a diamond in the rough because there were only a few boxes of them, but with the exception of a handful of fairly common Elvis 45s, there weren't more than five 45s that I'd consider to be harder to come by. He had an ear for Perry Como, Paul Weston, Nat King Cole and those quartet/trio type bands that reigned supreme in the 50s. The British invasion didn't seem to phase his taste. Most of the boxes have LPs in them and there are some really old extended play 45s. Those are the ones I'm cataloguing now. I will definitely consider putting the Google Doc catalogues in barter town and subscribing.

My 2 main concerns with the lot and reason for using this forum are to learn how to go about properly testing each unit and the best way to gently clean them when necessary. When in doubt I error on the side of caution and won't do either until I do the research or find someone more knowledgeable and qualified to do it .There are just so many radios/players/stereos and turntables that I'm nervous about putting power/amps through them.
 
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