Tag Archives: retro phonograph

Tower Records 3-D “The Brian Setzer Orchestra” Advertisement!!!

Posted on January 21, 2018 by Hepcats Haven

Today, we were over at our friends Mark & Kelly Skipper’s house (of the famed Overlook Tiki Lounge at Skipperworld Headquarters). We picked up a piece they had that we absolutely fell in love with. This three-dimensional advertisement was designed and painted by an unknown artist for Tower Records. When the shop closed they sold off the fixtures and one of Marks’ friends nabbed it. Mark later came into possession of it, and now us!

This piece is large. It measures 4ft by 5.5ft. We had a space open on our wall in the living room and it filled it perfectly!!! It may be difficult to see in the photos, but all the words, the hot rod and the dude are raised off the surface of the piece, creating a 3-D effect.

The hotrod is killer and the dude in the seat is just cruising!

We love the tikis behind him. The imagery of this piece is so bold and vibrant!

Thanks Mark & Kelly for such a fantastic piece! We will cherish it for many years to come.

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Posted in The Makin's Of Our Pad and tagged 1950's, 1960's, 50's, 50’s music, Atomic, atomic tiki, Brian Setzer, hot-rod, mid century, midcentury, retro, retro decor, retro phonograph, steel guitar, Stray Cats, swing, The Brian Setzer Orchestra, tiki, vintage, vintage electronics, vintage record player. Bookmark the permalink.

Rare 1956 Crescent 45 Record Player

Posted on June 28, 2017 by Hepcats Haven

I am a record player fanatic! There were so many makes and styles that the options are almost endless. As usual, I was cruising eBay when SHAZAM, I came across this rare 1956 Crescent 45 record player.

This unit is farm fresh. It needs some cleaning up and a servicing to make it fully functional again.

I love the slanted design with the metal hairpin legs on the front. I also dig the atomic green fabric with the gold diamond accents on the front.

This unit has a speaker underneath. This is what drove the slanted design of this record player.

I will use some light grit sand paper to clean up all the gold accents and paint them with the 24K gold spray paint carried by Michael’s.

The grey material on the outside of the case is in good shape, but will need some freshening up.

I will reach out to my faithful repair guy Justin from Stellar Electronics. I know he will fix her up!

Here is the original ad showing this little gem towards the bottom.

For all of you who noticed the record in the background, it is a Les Baxter 10″ 33&1/3 album. This cover is so fantastic and came out at the same time the player did.

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Posted in Restorations, The Makin's Of Our Pad and tagged 1950's Audio, 1950's record player, 1960's Audio, 1960's record player, 45 record player, 50's Audio, 50's record player, 60's Audio, 60's record player, atomic record player, audiophile, fifties record player, mid century record player, midcentury record player, Phonograph, record, Retro Audiophile, retro phonograph, retro record player, vintage record player, vinyl records. Bookmark the permalink.

Barzilay Furniture Mfg. Co. Record Player Stand Restoration

Posted on May 5, 2017 by Hepcats Haven

Mel and I came across this piece in a store in San Jose, California. I wanted to revamp our listening area in our house and this was gonna be a key piece. While I was examining it, I saw it had a makers mark. This piece was produced by Barzilay Furniture Mfg. Co.. We’re not familiar with this maker. I did some research on them and it looks like they were based out of Gardena, California. They were known to be one of the best producers of stereo component consoles ever made. Some of the consoles were sold as kits that customers could purchase and assemble. From what I can tell, they went out of business sometime in the 80’s.

What we really like about this piece is the art deco flare to it. I love the vertical striated wood supports and the square door pulls. As you can see from the pics, it was in rough shape. Since we got it for a good deal, I had no qualms about painting it.

I decided to paint it in black and light pink semi-gloss house paint. I used a roller to get a more uniform finish. The first thing that had to be done was to sand everything down. Always make sure you wear a mask when sanding old pieces because they used really bad chemicals in finishing pieces and you don’t want to be inhaling it!

After many coats of paint and many hours of touch up it is done.

This will be a great area to hang out in and just chill while the vinyl spins.

I want to get a vintage reel to reel to go with this record player so I can listen to my reel to reel tapes as well.

I saved the makers mark.

Feel free to watch the video below, off to the next piece

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Posted in Restorations, The Makin's Of Our Pad and tagged 1940's furniture, 1950's furniture, 1960's furniture, 40's furniture, 50's furniture, 60's furniture, art deco furniture, Atomic Furniture, atomic record player, audio furniture, audiophile, mcm furniture, mid century furniture, midcentury furniture, retro furniture, retro phonograph, retro record player, vintage audio, vintage vinyl. Bookmark the permalink.

1970 Electrohome Apollo 862 Record Player With Custom Fiberglass Base

Posted on March 27, 2017 by Hepcats Haven

Mel and I have had this player for some time. This is the table top model, but they also made ones that had a tulip base stand.

We purchased this base that was originally for a terrarium, but was missing the plastic ball terrarium topper. I wasn’t sure what to do with this base until we saw online an exhibit that San Francisco Museum of Modern Art did about the 70’s. In the exhibit, they used the same record player paired with a similar base. With that idea, I was excited to bring these two pieces together.

I could have painted the base a hundred different colors, but I felt that black looked best with the black accents on the record player. After the paint dried, I had to drill holes to route the cord through the center.

I also wanted to cut out three holes on the bottom to keep the cord and speaker wires separate from one another.

After all the drilling and painting was done, all I had to do was bring these two together. I love the results!

I think this unit looks really slick now!

This is way more space age looking.

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Posted in Our Collection, Restorations and tagged 1970's phonograph, 1970's record player, 1970's vinyl, 70's phonograph, 70's record player, 70's vinyl, audiophile, Electrohome phonograph, Electrohome record player, mid century phonograph, mid century record player, midcentury phonograph, midcentury record player, mod record player, panton phonograph, panton record player, phonograph restoration, record player restoration, retro phonograph, retro record player, space age record player. Bookmark the permalink.

Alameda Point Antiques Faire Small Haul

Posted on July 3, 2016 by Hepcats Haven

Today, we hit the Alameda Point Antiques Faire. Mel and I were up around 2:30am to get ready and head out for the faire. The Alameda Point Antiques Faire opens at 6:00am, and there is usually a line eagerly awaiting to get in. We were third in line and managed to score a few items for our collection. Here are our trophies for the day!

Mel was able to snatch up these two pieces of Holt Howard. These little pixieware jars can get pricey!

We have tried to kitsch up our kitchen even more than it already is. When I saw these Holt Howard scarecrow salt and pepper shakers I knew they would look fantastic on our Big Chill cooktop.

This kitschy ceramic cow bank will look great on top of our fridge!

Here are more kitschy cows.

This is a metal doggie bank. He is so cute!

We already have a set of these, but one of them was repaired. This is a flawless set that will be a great replacement. These are so atomic!

Though we do not smoke cigarettes, we love the colors in this set of ashtrays made by Eagle.

This is a great coral fiberglass barrel lamp shade.

Mel was able to pick up these fifties wall fish as well. Ceramicraft produced the fish on the right. Although we’ve seen the set on the left before, we’re unsure of the maker.

These vintage hanging seahorses were a great find. They were produced by Nameth Enterprises.

These of course will end up in our Tiki room. They are vintage Bali Tiki headhunter salt and pepper shakers.

We are always on the hunt for vintage barkcloth, so we knew we had to get this bolt of fabric.

This is an awesome small pink ceramic bullet planter. Something that is crazy in the bullet planter world is that sometimes the smaller ones are more valuable than the larger ones.

Mel and I have really enjoyed staging our rooms such as the kitchen, laundry room and bathrooms. This set of vintage products will end up in our master bathroom. We love all the little starbursts!

I love this novelty shot glass set, it’s fantastic! The imagery on the original box is so cool.

Mel scored this fantastic large vintage plastic aqua and white purse.

These speakers look like UFO’s! They were made by National Home Speaker (model SPT-501) and were mainly used as external speakers for small radios.

For me, this was the find of the day. This little record player is in fantastic original condition. The unit still works, but needs some minor adjustments to fine tune it.

The green felt on the platter is still soft and the fabric on the front is flawless.

The cabinet needs a little touch up, but I am so lovin’ this little guy!

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Posted in The Makin's Of Our Pad and tagged Alameda Antique Fair, Alameda Antique Faire, Alameda Antiques Fair, Alameda Antiques Faire, Alameda Point Antique Faire, Alameda Point Antiques Fair, atomic home decor, ceramicraft, Davar, deforest, Enesco, fish wall pocket, Freeman McFarlin, holt howard, Holts Howard Pixieware, kitsch, kitsch home decor, kitschy, kitschy home decor, mid century home decor, mid century picking, mid-century shopping, midcentury home decor, midcentury shopping, Namath Enterprises, Napco, norcrest, Phonola, Phonola Phonograph Record Player, Pixieware, retro ceramic fish, retro home decor, retro phonograph, retro picking, retro record player, retro shopping, Retro wall fish, retro wall pocket, Tropical Treasures, Vintage Ceramic FIsh, vintage home decor, vintage phonograph, vintage picking, vintage record player, vintage shopping, vintage wall fish, vintage wall pocket. Bookmark the permalink.

Happy Easter Everyone!

Posted on March 27, 2016 by Hepcats Haven

Jim Reeves is ringing in Easter morning at the Hepcat house.

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Posted in The Makin's Of Our Pad and tagged mid century phonograph, mid century record player, retro phonograph, retro record player, Tension pole album holder, Tension pole record holder, Tension pole vinyl holder, vintage phonograph, vintage record player, VM phonograph, VM record player, Voice of Music phonograph, Voice of Music record player. Bookmark the permalink.

1965 Electrohome ‘Circa 703’ cabinet by Deilcraft of Canada

Posted on July 7, 2015 by Hepcats Haven

Mel and I were at the Alameda Point Antiques Faire this last weekend that is held the first Sunday of every month.

There were some cool items out for sale, but we were blown away by this Electrohome unit for sale by our friend Ed. He saw our Hepcat Restorations and the recent post we did on our newly acquired “Ultra rare RCA record player, radio and cassette player“. At the bottom of that post I showcased other units I wish I could find, and this was one of them! We were so excited to see Ed had this and he brought it thinking it was something we would dig, and he was right.

They made an acompaning chair that allowed you to listen and control the music from the Circa 703, what a cool idea! I can’t imagine there are many of those chairs around now.

The designing mind behind Electrohomes Circa 75 was Gordon Duer. He was the design director and was responsible for making sure that the designs were forward thinking. They made sure to use materials that would be ultra futuristic, like plastic in all it’s forms; glossy, metalic, silver and white. The belief was that plastics would be the medium that would be used to help shape the future. On this particular unit they used their fair share of plastics, but the outer case is teak. These units sold for around $600 back in the day, which was quite an investment for that time period.