Pickering Fluxvalve Unipoise Tonearm

Well, you got me on this one! I've always prided myself with knowledge of older Pickering and Stanton products, but I've never seen this one either. One thing that's hard to notice, and it's only noticeable in the ad for the tonearm, is that the finger lift, unlike the rest of the world being on the side of the arm, is on the top of the arm. Subsequent Pickering and Stanton tonearms, as well as the awful Stanton turntables (Pickering turntables in Europe) all had the finger lift on the top as well. The reasoning, and this was exclusively Walter Stanton's belief, was that the best way to lift the arm was to rest one's hand on the turntable's platform, and use one's thumb, push backwards toward the arm's pivot, to more accurately lift the arm from the record. While the rest of the audio world eschewed this belief, Walter never veered from it.

In the 90's, when Stanton made the Trackmaster DJ cartridge to compete with the hugely successful Ortofon concord model, Walter actually wanted the finger lift in the middle again. The company's VP of engineering actually saved the day by putting a leading edge on the side mounted lift to allow one to lift the arm "the Stanton way," knowing that a top mounted finger lift would have killed the product, and to tell Walter Stanton that he was wrong would have killed his position with the company!

For future reference here is a copy of what is stated in the ad.

QUOTE

Here is a wonderful and collectible high end vintage Phongraph pick up and arm. The Pickering Fluxvalve Unipoise Model 194. This unit was sesigned by Stanton when he worked for Pickering. This high style unit is complete in the original box with all the mounting hardware and instructions and templates for mounting the unit. I do not know if it works, by the looks of it I don't think it was ever used. The packing slip is dated 3-26-63 from Pickering. The unit is very 1960's modern design and quite beautifully made. In reading all the information this was the up to datest, last word in audio design. There is no lid for the box. I think it had some kind of cellophane lid so you could see the packaging. A great piece of vintage audio equipment.

Jim