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Just bought a restored Grado Lab Series wooden tonearm

Aw poop. Due to the dadburned blizzard we just had, delivery is being delayed. It was scheduled to arrive yesterday, but UPS tracking shows that it arrived in Boston this morning, which indicates probable delivery in Lexington tomorrow. :(

At least I have the weekend to play with it! :)

The original 1961 armboard and wiring harness are looking lonely...

 
Incidentally, the original 1961 interconnects appear to be of decent quality, and the rubber insulation is still very supple. As far as my 50-year-old eyes can make out, they are marked "Shinko 26 AWG."

Anybody know anything about Shinko wires? There is a company today with that name making tires, and another one that makes semiconductors.
 
Anticlimactic follow-up...

The arm arrived and I discovered that the counterweight inside the black 'nest' is not original to the arm, and the way it was jerryrigged makes it impossible to properly adjust the balance.

I contacted the seller last night to inform him that I would be returning it, and am awaiting a response. I don't anticipate a problem with this (I have eBay and Paypal on my side), but it is disappointing.
 
Sorry to hear about hour bad news. That's a darn shame. Hopefully you will come up with a great specimen in the near future.

Regards
Mister Pig
 
Thanks, MP! I still have the SME here, which is a mighty fine arm. I just need to put everything back together the way it was.
 
All's well that ends well. The seller was totally cool about it and sent me a refund immediately, even before I returned the arm.
 
beatcomber said:
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Everything I've read around the 'net indicates that these arms are lighter than their appearance suggests. Presumably, after 50+ years the wood has dried out somewhat and the arm is even lighter today than it was in 1961.
Click to expand...

This thread has raised my level of seller's regret considerably. I thought some of you might want to see the Grado tt the arm was typically sold with.

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I think most of those arms had to have been sold separately. The arms show up for sale pretty regularly. I've only heard of a handful of the Grado tables.
 
Dang. I was really hoping to hear your review of the arm. I keep thinking one day I will nab one, but they always climb out of my price range.
 
Sam Cogley said:
I think most of those arms had to have been sold separately. The arms show up for sale pretty regularly. I've only heard of a handful of the Grado tables.
Click to expand...

You're right. The arms are much more common than the table. What I failed to communicate was, this was a (the?) table Grado sold with that arm.

I'd like to see the main bearing as I never got into any disassembly.
 
Sorry to hear it didn't work out. I was really looking forward to your review and some pics. Hopefully another one will pop up soon.
 
I'm really sorry to hear that this happened. Hopefully a new one pops up soon!
 
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