The Dansette Record Player
The first machine teenagers owned instead of borrowed.
Portable, two-tone, with an autochanger that stacked eight singles and dropped them one at a time onto the turntable.
The Dansette arrived exactly when rock and roll did, and it is not a coincidence that both are remembered together. It had a handle, so it went to a friend's house, which meant music left the front room for the first time.
The autochanger was the killer feature: stack your singles, and the party ran itself for half an hour. Then somebody knocked the table and the arm skated across the record.
Cost back then
£19
Goes for now
£120–£350 working
