Wilcox Gay playback and saving?

[mike915w]

Hi, I'm new to the group and have some questions about playing and saving records that were made by family members back in the 40's. I retired a few years ago (71 years old now). I've kept a Wilcox Gay record recorder that an aunt and uncle had. There are recordings made by my mother, my sister at 8 years old (she's 74 now) and I think even of myself at 4 years old.
There are around 40 or 50 records and I've played a few back with the recorder that made them. I'm sure the records are far from perfect but the player isn't either.
These are 78's? and we currently do not even have a player of any type. I'm looking to buy a new player to hear these and also would like something we can use to play many of our old LP's & 45's from "Back when". I see many new players with prices all over and many play 78's but other info says these need a stylus for 78's to play them well.
My main goal is to just play and save recordings of these home made records so that is my main question. Cost is always a factor but I hate absolute junk and there seems to be an abundance of that for sale.
I'm grateful to find this group and any help would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you,
Mike

[THEVICTROLAGUY]

mike,
if your looking for an inexpensive way to play these records check out ebay for a califone school record player. they are built like tanks and have all four original speeds. you can also use them for interfacing with your computer to capture the audio as an mp3 file. i use an old califone for doing just that. i have the speaker output plugged into my computer rear blue input, makes high quality audio recording direct to your computer. the machine can be found for as little as $ 40,00 sometimes. the prices vary wildly with no two people asking the same amount for the same machine. here are a few examples so you can see and hear one of these old machines, they sound quite good and they are cheap...

regards

Benjamin