Tonearms without anti-skate, damage to records?

E and S, thanks so much for the guidance! Elizabeth, it is always great to hear from you, but I think that bias adjustments came earler than that; one of my arms is a Micro Seiki MA202L from around 1970 with standard anti-skate. It would be interesting to see when it became common on arms. The new old arm is an ESL (Ortofon) 2000, so I will go for it.

I agree with the above posters who say that not having an antiskating adjustment will not harm your records. I have a couple of test records that test for antiskating, one with a blank side and another that has a test tone track, and Stringreen is correct, it is very difficult to set antiskating so that it does not pull the arm toward the center of the record. I would like to think I can hear sonic differences with different antiskating settings on my Graham Phantom unipivot arm, but I might be fibbing. The only effect I thought I could hear was slight skewing of the soundstage right or left. Personally I would not let this lack affect my decision.

Lately I've just given up with AS altogether on my Project Perspective Carbon. I just can't stand the sight of that weight swinging back and forth, knowing it's attached directly to the tonearm.
It has always sounded better without the AS weight attached. Open, calm, more at ease.

Wacky idea - Alter the level-ness of your TT to induce slight outward force, counteracting the skating force?

I set AS at a minimum with the Pro-Ject 9C carbon fiber arm on 2Xperience table with Benz Ace. I agree with Mfsoa.....don't like the sight of that weight swinging but I do use AS. I would prefer an arm with other type of AS adjustment without the weight, although some say the weight is the better approach....go figure.

The RS-A1 and the new Nottingham tonearm on the 294 model do not have anti-skate, because the headshell (and therefore the cartridge) is not set at an angle to the arm tube. Thus skating force is not generated. I think there are other older tonearms that are so designed. Perhaps yours is one of those.