My Mother died on Christmas Eve age 98. My father died six years earlier. I spent a week in the UK for my mother's funeral on January 11. So it is now time the sell the family home, my father bought in 1951. So my siblings, my wife and I started to empty this house we have occupied for 67 years to get it ready for sale.
The old parsonage is a an old vicarage to All Saints Church Frindsbury. It is an old Saxon church, at least parts of it are.
The church is high above the river Medway and you can get a good view of Rochester Castle and Cathedral looking South the the South Bank of the river.
The Old Parsonage was built during the reign of Queen Anne, 1702 to 1707 under Queen Anne's Bounty.
The dwelling suffered significant bomb damage in WW II, and my father bought it as a ruin from the Church Commissioners. The restoration took 2 years, and we moved in March 1953. I was age 5 and 3 months. I remember all this clearly, including the restoration in great detail.
So first the audio, and most of this I had no idea was in the OP still.
The first audio system was installed in the drawing room, (living) room in 1953 when we moved in. This was of course the mono era. There was a 12" Goodmans speaker in a brick cavity in the right side. It crossed over to an 8" Wharfedale super 8" in a small cabinet on a shelf just above and to one side of the 12" unit. I have this Wharfedale here and have had it for years. It needs the foam surround restored.
Now to my surprise the original AR Sugden Connisseur turntable was hidden away. This is pre Garrard 301, and is considered the world's first transcription turntable. It does not have the original arm, it has a rather crude arm that my father built. The turntable is 33 and 78 RPM. The 45 discs had not yet appeared.
I even found a spare set of idler wheels you can see beside it.
The original Leak TL 12 tube power amp was still around and my Leak TL 10 and both Leak RCPAU tube preamps.
My TL 10 power amp and he two preamps.
My Father's TL 12 power amp.
With the arrival of stereo in 1959, the Leak TL 12 was replaced with Quad 22 and two Quad II 15 watt each power amps.
I'm going I think to ship the Sugden turntable over here to restore since they are so very rare.
I also found a real curio, but did not photograph, my old Gramdeck. It is in its box. I will, as I will ship this for my museum.
Those were the most interesting finds. There was also and early NEAL Ferrograph cassette deck. This was one to of those early decks built round the 3M Wollensack decks, built in Minneapolis.
Now we will switch gears to other items. I found my old gauge O Hornby clock work tank engine. It was still in its box and with its key. It was mint and still worked when I wound it up. I must have been an odd chap then as there was not a mark on it. I had that age 5 and used it until age about 8 or or 9. There was complete Hornby gauge 0 track and the locking devices and some points. I did not take a picture unfortunately, but I will have my nephew do it, as it will go up on eBay.
Now for Christmas when I was 9, I was given a scale model Mogel 2-6-0 model gauge 0
Bassett Lowke working scale model steam locomotive. Yes this is powered by steam and all the pistons and valves are working scale models. Yes, the locomotive is driven by steam with water in the boiler and a methylated spirit burner under the boiler. There is a forced oiling system driven by steam pressure. I brought this engine back in my suit case.
I last fired it up in the UK for my grandson Ethan in 2004. I ran it up and down a small section of track. You can see the speed lever with controls speed, forward and reverse coming out of the cab. If you look closely you can see a little steam coming out of the funnel.
Ethan is now in his second semester studying mechanical engineering at the University of Minnesota.
I also has at the time a Bassett Lowke 4-4-0 Enterprise which belonged to my father as a child. He gave it to my nephew John.
I found all the Bassett Lowke track that I built from Bassett Lowke parts. I never had any Basset Lowke rolling stock, I used my Hornby rolling stock from my clockwork era. That was all there with a lot of the items still in their original boxes. I'm arranging all this to be sent out to me. I'm not sure what to do with it though. Those engines are worth an awful lot of money now.
It was a different era. I used to use those engines as a child. They taught care and responsibility. You had to watch your boiler water carefully, as with all steam engines if you run them out of water then the engine would explode violently and you were one dead kid.
If the train came off the track and turned over, which it would on occasion,then the methylated spirit fuel would spill and it burst into flames. So I kept a hemp sack handy in a bowl of water, and would throw the wet sack over the flaming engine, and the flames were immediately extinguished.
I dare not even think what the modern snowflakes would think of a toy like that!
There are a couple of old interesting engines there. There is a
Commer Knocker TS3 three cylinder six piston two cycle 120 HP diesel engine there. No I did not make a mistake!
My father put one of these in his boat Clarion. I was with him on a visit when he bought this engine out of an old horse box at a breaker's yard at Ipswich Suffolk. It stated right away.
This engine was bought as a spare. The engines were made during the fifties and until 1968. I'm pretty sure this is a later model. The later ones produced an extra 20 HP because they could make 200 extra revs at 2200, rather the 2000. The lift pump and starter are off it bu there. There is also a complete CAV injector pump which also looks to be in good condition. There are also some gaskets. I found not just one, but three complete service manuals.
The other engine of interest is this Lister HR 2A two cylinder air cooled generator set. This generator is perfectly governed and steady. Date of production of this unit was 1973.
There has been an awful lot of interesting items in that dwelling. One item I think I will have shipped is the old hall clock.
This clock was built by Thomas Dicker who built clocks in Silcester Berkshire from 1736 to 1756. From the look of his work, I suspect this is one of his earliest clocks. So it is in period of the home. It worked until about 8 or so years ago. Now it almost works, it goes for a while but the pendulum gradually peters out. I suspect it just need a little cleaning and lubrication after all that time.
I dismantled the tree audio systems there. The Garrard 301 I will bring out. It is in mint cosmetic condition, but run a bit too fast. So I will restore it. It has an SME series one arm with a Shure V 15 at the moment. I already have the early Ortofon moving coil cartridge which was the second cartridge on that arm.
This is a long post but I hope many members will find some of these items interesting.