I do not want to sound like I am dissing older models. Some are very good and the original owners know what they have. Again, if you know what you have and if you know someone who is selling a table and you trust him and know him well and that he took care it thats different.
What is the fascination?
I have to ask what is the fascination with these older turntables? I recently listened to an older SP 10 MKII with a Jelco and Older SME arm with Koetsu and Stanton cartridges. The sound was very good I will admit but I cannot say it was better than the 1200G or even a 1200GR for that matter. Heck even the Rega RP 8 is really an amazing sounding turntable for the money and they are brand new. These tables are coming up on 40 plus years old. One forum contributor said a turntable should not have any sound at all. I agree and the newer tables get closer to that "no sound" than many of these colored (smooth, warm) sounding turntables I recently purchased a Pickering ESV 3000 MM cartridge that arrived in the mail yesterday and I had to ask myself, "what am I doing?" So with that being said, why the fascination? If one want to change the sound of the table, start with the cartridge, they all do sound different. Nowadays the tables and arms are so good and engineered based on the earlier designs and bettered. Also, when you buy say an older used arm, how do you know its been cared for? Arms bearings can be screwed up pretty bad when one tries to tighten cartridges with the headshell attached to the tonearm or the tonearm mounted on the table and many people do not even know they are destroying their arms bearings so I mean you really have to know who you are getting the arm from and check the bearings etc. There is a lot of risk with turntables, much more than with any components because of so many moving parts that do get old and break. Why the fascination?