This is not meant to be a definitive guide to the Garrard 301 but is intended to help relative novices to understand the main differences between the various versions and to introduce a few pointers on what to look for when buying.

The Garrard 301 was first manufactured in 1954 by The Garrard Engineering and Manufacturing Company Ltd of Swindon.

The first version had a grease lubricated spindle and this is easily recognised because the bearing housing has a brass grease resevoir on the side which has a knurled cap. The knurled cap is turned to intorduce a charge of grease into the bearing assembly. I do not have a picture of a grease bearing spindle assembly at the moment but the picture above (an oil bearing) clearly shows the protrusion which the grease bearing reservoir is fitted to.

Later versions of the Garrard 301 were oil bearing and some grease bearings have been adapted to oil bearing by removing the grease reservoir and capping it. The main plate on the Garrard 301 will identify if it began life as a grease bearing version. Grease bearing Garrard 301s had a schedule number of 51400/1 and the oil bearing has a schedule number of 51400/2. This may be seen in images lower down in this guide.

It is usually accepted that oil bearing Garrard 301s are superior to the grease bearing version as the grease tends to solidify due to age and this can introduce drag and therefore wow and flutter in the playback.

The Garrard 301 was manufactured in two different colours, cream and white and as a rule Garrard 301s that have had the paintwork refinished or have been resprayed are white. This general rule means that cream versions tend to be completely original. Garrard 301 paintwork was seldom perfect so the odd dimple underneath the platter is not at all unusual.

All too often these are found with marks from dustbugs, these marks CANNOT be removed and if you cannot live with a mark the best thing to do is to buy a used Watts dustbug to sit over the mark.

It is usually possible to tell if a unit has been resprayed because the manufacturing stamps underneath have dissapeared although this is not always the case as vigerous cleaning can also remove any factory marks such as in the image above. However there is usually some kind of marking.

The Garrard 301 came with two types of control plates, the more common black on silver and the rarer silver on black.

Incidently the three pointed speed adjuster knob is the same as the knob found on the back of early Tannoy loudspeakers.

Originally the Garrard 301 was supplied with a plain sided platter but after a few years the strobe sided platter was offered as replacement and eventually the strobe sided platter became standard. There are two kinds of strobe sided platter 50Hz and 60Hz, they are marked internally to indicate which type they are. In my opinion the plain platter is best and of course is universal.

There are two types of drive spindle for 50Hz and 60 Hz. Genuine Garrard drive spindles can be identified by the colour nickel finish for 50Hz and brass finish for 60Hz. Aklso the 60Hz version is far thinner than the 50Hz version so a 50Hz version may be turned down carefully for use in 60Hz countries.

Garrard 301s are generally very robust and there is little that goes wrong. The weak spots are the speed change and on/off levers which break very easily, especially the speed change one. The enamel often gets chipped under the mounting set screw heads. This is because instead of tightening the unit down by turning the nuts, owners turn the set screw. You should always assume that here are chips under the set screw heads. The other imporant thing to note is that the idler wheel can develop a flat spot if the unit is turned of at the main power supply and the on/off lever left in the on position. This will introduce a very noticable wow and flutter.