There is something unique about the smell of a paper "leatherette" covered phonograph
 

This Magnavox suitcase style player I had posted about for a resistor value has a unique smell especially when the tubes and everything get hot. I figure it must be the material it was made from but it takes me right back to childhood playing records on a suitcase style record player. Mine was manual and mono but it had tubes also. The sound is nothing to write home about but I like the Collaro changer and of course the smell. What are these made from? Some kind of paperboard? I figure the fake leatherlook covering is some kind of paper too?

I have a heavy solid state Magnavox with much better sound but it doesn't posess this same smell.Kinda strange.It was stored someplace damp and smells more mildewey.

Here's a smell for you. I just received a '64 or '65 Magnavox Full Dimension High Fidelity 7" reel tape recorder that smells like a library. I have two small sliding door cabinets that did have the same library smell to them for a few years. My recorder is solid state though. The Magnavox portable cases are wood with either vinyl or leatherette coverings. Intriguing smell, but not that great smell of a new Magnavox console back in the day.

I know that smell, JC! I'm thinking maybe the glue that holds the covering on? A lot of unique smells in the world of vintage electronics. Comforting to walk in to my radio room and take it in...weird folks in this hobby, huh?

Nope. My "Ship's Radio Room" has a DEFINATE "Old Electronics" smell to it, which I love...

I thought it was just Mildew?
I find that some TV's and Phonos with that type cabinet, that have been closed up for a long time, have an almost unbearable Mildew smell, not sure if it's the cabinet or the contents.

I have a couple RCA 45 players with the carry cases and they smelled quite bad when I got them.

I bought a Magnavox table radio dated about 1970, the people I got it from were sure it was from the '40s. It still has a distinct mildew smell, not that lovely woodsy smell or the library smell some of my sets have. I also have a Magnavox tube portable from around 1962-3 with that nasty mildew smell. It depends where they were for the last several years. One of my consoles smelled of cherry pipe tobacco for a few weeks.

I remember the distinctive plastic-wood-tube aroma from my parents' Westinghouse portable phono with a BSR Monarch changer that they bought new in the 1950's. Nothing else smelled like it.
Then in 1980, I remember getting a new savings account passbook from a Canadian bank.
It smelled exactly the same.