RARE VINTAGE Philco-Ford Mini Record Player #S-1369BE

$

153

PHILCO FORD

Mini Record Player

Model # S-1369BE

Philco Ford Miniature 45 Record Player (7 inches by 4-1/4 inches)

Philco Ford Hip-Pocket Records

HP10 Five Americans // Westrn Union / Sounds of Love

HP37 Rooftop Singers // Walk Right In / Tom Cat

HP13 Otis Redding // Shake / Fa Fa Fa Fa Fa

HP12 Percy Sledge // When a Man Loves a Woman / Baby Help Me

HP11 Wilson Pickett // Land of 1,000 Dances / Midnight Hour

HP8 Sonny & Cher // I Got You Babe / The Beat Goes On

This is a very FUN machine!!  And very RARE!!

It includes the spacer so it can play regular 45's with the bigger hole in the center than the HP mini records have.  Battery operated and with a wrist handle too for taking to the beach, lake or pool!  With this a kid must have been absolutely cutting edge at the time. This was the first version of our ipods!  :-)

I did put 4 C batteries in to see if it works.  The records played fine (we all really enjoyed it!!) but it they played a bit fast.  I didn't see a speed control, but the works of the unit are very easy to access, so someone could tinker with it to make it play at the right speed.  I just didn't want to break it while trying to fix it.

Player measures:   Length 7 1/4,  Width  4 1/4,  Height 2 1/4

Philco manufactured these types of disks under the name "Hip Pocket Records" and sold them to be played on portable record players, which were specially created for the disks. Artists who appeared on these disks included Neil Diamond, The Five Americans, The Doors, Sonny and Cher, Merrilee Rush, and Joan Baez. The disks were sold in vending machines for 50 cents or counter displays at stores for 49 cents and could hold a capacity of about 3.5 minutes of music, due to this reason songs like, The Beatles' Hey Jude, which was 7 minutes long could not be played in their entirety.  They later dropped to 39 cents. They were officially released on September 15, 1968 and test marketed in several major cities in the United States, but did not catch on or become a standard music format, like their creators and marketers had hoped. They were discontinued in 1969.