Jelco tonearms closes

As any discontinued products they will stay on the used market for decades with some aftermarket parts for them (or custom made parts from third party vendors). No more new tonearms from Jelco :( 

Sad to hear a company with such long history going away.

Our son lives in Tokyo, and he has been working from his apartment for at least 6-7 weeks.  An established company like Jelco could certainly halt production temporarily or cut back to just doing repairs, without the extreme measure of going out of business entirely, it would seem to me on the surface.  I have to wonder whether there is some other motivation, but in any case, it's a loss to our hobby.  I worry more about the plight of hundreds of thousands of people who run the many thousands of tiny restaurants that are a part of what makes Tokyo such a great place to visit (and eat).  Dan says you can get carry-out here and there, but many restaurants are just closed up entirely.  He formerly used his kitchen to store clothing, but now he has had to clear off his stove for cooking, which he does not like to do.

“For the past few years, the business has endured a decline in labor productivity due to health issues arising from our aging skilled engineers. Furthermore, due to our obsolete mechanical equipment, performing maintenance on them has become difficult.”

Here is the other part of the story behind closing doors. The company have not invested in recruiting new talent nor replaced equipments to keep up with modern times.

In any case, It’s sad and unfortunate to see them close their doors.

Compare to other tonearms in the market, I think Jelco priced too low to survive.