[78-L] turntable question

[DAVID BURNHAM]

A friend writes of of a turntable on which there was a tone arm that  would 
move to the centre of the record and then "slowly move to the edge before  
playing".  He says that it wasn't a changer.  What would this  have been?

pc

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In the late 50s, there was a German changer/manual player, (it was in a Loewe-Opta console but I think the brand of the player was "PE"). on which the record from the stack would fall about a half of an inch, the arm would move forward and tap the side of the disc to determine its diameter, move back, let the disc drop and then proceed to play the record.  If there was no disc in the stack, the arm would move far enough to determine this and then return to its rest.  This is a bit different than you describe but it's the closest I can come to it.

db