Hot Rods Price of 8 track players. HOLY COW!!

Squirrel, WOW looks like he hit the mother load there!!!!Bruce.

 

One of my buds back in the day, he had TONS of vinyl (records), an unbelievable collection. Then he got into 8-tracks, thousands of those. Flea markets would sell bootlegs for like a buck or two. In his house, he had a car player bolted to a shelf where his stereo equipment lived.

He had a splitter on his speakers, could go between records, cassette, 8-track and reel to reel. The 8-track was powered by a battery charger and might have run off a car battery at some point. But what a great sound system, at least to our drunk-stoned ears in 1977.

I recall driving and seeing kaput tapes unraveled, caught in bushes and guardrails, like streamers in the wind. Even the birds used the tape to build nests. If a tape refused to work one time too many... out the window it went.

 

Craig/Pioneer stereo 4x4 will play both 4 and 8 track tapes. I have one. D

 

Was in a pub one evening and the owner sent one of the waitresses over to see me. Seems she had just bought a 67 mustang and she and her dad had pulled the factory am fm 8 track out and wondered if I was interested. Gave her $20- on the spot, she brought it in the next day along with a few tapes. It'll find its way into my 57 one day.

Before I retired some of the guys in the shop knew my liking 8 tracks and would bring some to me. Always gifted never bought. And every once in awhile would come to work and a few would be on top of my tool box, never found out who that was.

Now, if someone really wants a period perfect sound system it's not 8 tracks that should be the object of desire. A buddy of mine's older brother had a first generation Barracuda with an underdash 45 record player. I have lusted for one for years but not willing to fork up the outrageous prices those get. And like an earlier poster mentioned I've just driven the price up on them.

 

Wow the interest this has brought! Funny how things work. I found a am-fm 8 track. With the post about Barry8track repair there is a link to by those rubber belt that tend to break or get hard over time.. So Im gonna try that route and see what happens.
Had a couple guys offer players to me and I appreciate it very much. I will keep you in mind in case I cant get this other one working.

 

the motors and head actuator get gummy with time, so make sure all those parts are moving freely before you try to run a tape through it.

 

Ah, 8-track memories. I still have a few around here somewhere. Relics from High School days. Everyones favorite was my Rocky Horror tape. That was our partying out in the orange orchards tape. Nothing like a gaggle of drunk goat-roper farm kids doing the Time Warp in the mud.

Since we're on the subject of crappy old stereo equipment, anyone remember all the different 6x9 speakers? 2-way, 3-Way, 4 WAY!! And with the cheesy chrome face plates. You were the shit if you had some 4-ways in the back deck and your Craig 8-track slung under the dash. How many perfect kick and door panels were ruined by installing a bitchin' pair of "coaxials"? Just loved it in the middle of your favorite song...Clunk, and it would "change sides"!

 

Uncle Sam had me spend all of 1972 in South Korea. While I was there I picked up a nice component stereo system - one piece a month. I bought a nice Pioneer Receiver, Sansui speakers, a Dual turntable and an Akai reel to reel recorder with an 8-track recorder built in the side of it. When I got back to the US in 1973 my friends would bring by albums and we would record 8-tracks. I had a stop watch and we would try to time things so it didn't change tracks in the middle of a song. Good times haha.

 

I have a Panasonic 4 channel 8 track player for a home system I bought back in 74 or so to match up with my Sansui 4 channel components.
If anyone is interested PM me, have some tapes too.

 

How will he get a 8 track in to the car with all those tapes? Is there still room, looks full.

Nice plan.

 

Ask me how many sabre saw blades I went through putting speakers in my 61 Impala and 57 BelAirs' door panels.
IIRC, I was always running into a double panel or some other kind of obstruction.

 

I DON'T KNOW IF ANY SAID SO, BUT THERE SERVICES THAT WILL PUT 8 TRACK MUSIC ON A DISCK FOR YOU...... MAYBE THE PHONE BOOK HAS ONE... BUT THE REAL 8 TRACK CAN'T BE BEAT IN AN OLD CAR....MLMLML

 

You forgot $5.99 for the tape and $6.95 shipping and handling.

 

There's a vacant house a couple blocks over. Signed up for the Columbia House deal, can choose ten different 8 tracks for only a penny! Going to have them mailed to that vacant address. Muhuhuhaha!!

 

This is on E-Bay;
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1970s-CRAIG...718176?hash=item2369226920:g:c-QAAOSwcL5XM9Cz

I think I have some players around too but I'd have to check. I had a GM factory under dash unit. A Cadillac AM/FM/CB/8Track and a Craig Powerplay floor mount.

I used to record vinyl records onto 8 Track tapes for people. I would split up the songs into the closest to 4 equal tracks and cut a blank tape to length so the channel didn't switch during a song.

 

Yes I do. I have a couple of home stereo 8 track recorders and have been known to reload cartridges with new tape and re-record the same album from a turntable. You have to use self lubricated broadcast cart machine tape which is now hard to find. The tinfoil splicing tape is also getting hard to find. Oh well someday I'll be hard to find too.........................

 

Geeze, so many different things discussed and virtually all of them hit home - matchbook wedges, rewinding cartridges or just throwing them out the window into the road in frustration/disgust (never failed every weekend there'd be a nest of tape blowing around one or both ends of the street we cruised and U-turned in our little town), coax/triax speakers, organ-pipe grilles, friends and cousins bringing back stereos after their tours in Korea, Japan or even 'Nam, cheap-ass Kraco players from K-mart, the dreaded pause-clank-continuation on the next track, Columbia House club membership (my brother did it, not me-I fell for the Military Book Club, and now I have my brother's now-classic collection of mid-late '70s tapes), FM converters and the cassette adapters...makes me wonder if I shouldn't put one of those cheap Kraco players I kept in my '55 Ford and get it working? Naw...

 

In the early 70's I just thought 8-tracks were the coolest thing since reverbs. Now I just wonder how the marketers managed to get us all to buy such a messed up technology.

 

Because in the early years (well, there was 4-track) they were the only way tapes or home recorded music could be played in the car. Record players had some technical issues and at the time cassette format was still dictation only, as designed.

 

Hey Don
Remember the Pet Rock, how about the Chia Pet, and the Cry Baby Doll, now you know how easy it is to get people to hand over their money.
Someday people will be saying "you payed how much for a cel phone back then".

 

Were you around then? A chevy van, carpeted, with an 8-track was at one time a stylin' thing and popular with the ladies, at least in theory. Pet rocks were a scam, everybody knew it then too. Don't forget Mood Rings.

The alternative in those days was the radio. The past is a different place, but if you dig a little there was sometimes a method to the madness.

 

Im sure Michael "wanted it"any way he could get it..

 

Then?
I remember this.



And this.

 

That album sold a lot of Excedrin I betcha. Jeezus

 

BTW, are you really 111 years old?

 

Says a lot about your D&A.

 

I used to work at a stereo repair shop. Did you know that a peanut butter and jelly sandwich will fit into them?

 

There is a couple of people that sell refurbishment stuff for 8 tracks on ebay. If you put in the new style splices, and the good foam on the tapes, they work great.

 

I have an 8 trk player in an off topic truck that has been in it since 1979, that still works, and I have one of those cassette adapters, and then throw in an Mp3 adapter in the cassette adapter, and you have a real Rube Goldberg thing going on. The tapes though are a different thing
.

 

In the late 80's you could still get 8-tracks through the record clubs. They were pretty much the only ones offering them. If you run across them now they are the most sought after 8-tracks by collectors. I ran across Michael Jacksons "Bad" and Journey's "Greatest Hits" awhile back. Both released in the late 80's, both sold well over $100 each.

Find a Kiss 8-track from then and you have mid 3 figures on your hands.