Dunno. I assume that the cartridge needs to be replaced.
Stage?
Waiting for an answer on the cartridge, the photo's don't show it or I might need glasses.
If MC are available, great. I have not listened to vinyl in at least 40 years so I have nothing to reference from a sonic perspective. Sold it all back in the 80's when CDs came out. Still have CDs from back then. I don't plan to actual use the unit, I just like how it looks and like to have it to be functional, otherwise it's just a waste of space.
This is one of the strangest posts we have had in a long time. Apparently you don't have any vinyl and you want this turntable for show, and yet you are concerned about what cartridge it has! By the look of it this turntable is not of museum quality. It is a very ordinary belt drive turntable in a plinth with a plexiglass lid. The arm is a typical over heavy S-shaped arm. This item is ordinary in the extreme.
As far as cartridges I would not fit a high priced MC cartridge. By the look of that arm it needs a middle of the road medium compliance MM cartridge.
MC cartridges as a group tend to be hot in the top end. They tend to be heavier than MM cartridges and tend to require a higher mass arm to keep the resonance in the right place.
The stylus is not user replaceable which is a big disadvantage, especially if the manufacturer no longer exists, or offers the service. MC cartridges require a low impedance high gain input stage. Because the gain is high they are more prone to noise problems.
Really turntables are only required for large legacy collections which I have, or for someone who wants to be a collector of rare recordings.
Turntables are hard work to put together and set up.
They also attract Audiophools like powerful magnets. These cause them to indulge in all sorts of strange phantasies, yet they are too stupid to really understand the key aspects of the physics of disc reproduction.
In my last comment, I'm getting at the fact that the cartridge/arm is a resonant system and really should be designed as a unit but very seldom is. By this I mean that the cartridge, moving mass of the arm and cartridge compliance form a resonant system. These are practically never matched even by audiophools obsessing about the irrelevant.
You would not think of replacing a driver in a speaker with one of different T/S parameters, but are quite happy to change cartridges with very different resonant properties.
Back in the fifties and sixties there were serious attempts to address this and produce arms and cartridges as a unit. The best and most widely adopted was the Decca ffss series of cartridges, or heads as they were known with the arm they snapped onto.
The other attempt was the teaming up of Shure with SME to optimize the performance of the V15 series cartridges. These later cartridges did have a damper to damp the arm cartridge resonance. The SME series III arms were designed to specifically optimize the performance of these cartridges. This was done to optimize the effective mass of the arms and add additional damping to the arm cartridge resonance.
I along with many, I think that the Shure V 15 series and specifically the xmr on a properly set up SME series III is the Everest of disc reproduction. I can attest that it is exceptionally good if perfectly set up and the loading capacitance optimized.
Here is a servo controlled Thorens TD 125 MK II with Shure V 15 xmr on an SME series III arm with fitted silicone bath damper with correct paddle.
It might not have all the chrome and luster of turntables costing thousands, but it really does not get any better than that.
So, if you actually do want to use that turntable, then I would get a middle of the road MM cartridge like an Ortofon red or splurge a little more on the blue. If you do go that route, then set up and adjust everything by the book. It takes very little to really spoil disc reproduction.
