Old radio find

[altivo]

Came home to discover a large antique radio cabinet in the garage. Gary pulled it in from one of the neighbors' trash piles. It's all intact and except for a lot of dust, appears to be in good restorable condition. General Electric, I'm guessing pre-WW2 vintage, but no model identification remains. I think it might be fun to repair and restore this, but it will be on hold until after the holidays at least.

	GE Radio cabinet front closed I'm sure the pulls are supposed to have little dangly brass ornaments or loops but those are gone. The wood is in surprisingly good condition, though, except for a few chips on the top. Approx. dimensions are 60 in. high, 32 in. wide, and 18 in. deep.
	GE Radio cabinet front open Speaker grill work and cloth is intact. It appears to be AM band only, with knobs for tone, volume, and tuning. On-off is the tiny knob below the tuning dial. A brass toggle switch on the center of the right hand side of the cabinet is probably a fringe-local switch for the tuning circuit.
	GE Radio rear view Two chassis, the top being the receiver, the bottom being the power supply and audio amplifier I think. No label remains with model information, alas. The one at the center behind the top chassis just says that the manufacturer recommends genuine RCA tubes. I'm betting that the large loudspeaker is one of those "dynamic" speakers that has a large DC choke coil instead of permanent magnets, and the power supply uses that coil as a filter choke. That explains the practice of putting the power rectifier next to the speaker along with the audio amplifier stage.

Comments

[quickcasey.livejournal.com]

That's even older than the one I gave Mr. Zenith. Er, I mean aerofox

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, my first guess was around 1938-1940, but if lobowolf is right, then it's almost ten years older. The cabinet is in excellent condition so it looks like a prime candidate for a serious restoration. The only things missing are the little dangly pulls for the doors.

[quickcasey.livejournal.com]

Even better, it's a rubbish rescue.

[kamo2paws.livejournal.com]

Those stand up radios are much harder to find than the smaller ones of the same era.. We have probably 100-150 of those radios in the family because one of us collects American radios pre 50's

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I wish I had the ones from my grandmother's house. They probably got thrown in the junk when she died. She had an Atwater Kent "table radio" that was actually a table. The radio was inside it, and the huge speaker pointed down at the floor. It still worked perfectly when I was a teenager, and my grandfather listened to baseball games on it. She also had a Philco "chairside" radio with shortwave bands in addition to the AM. It sat next to an overstuffed chair and could be used as a convenient table to put a drink or your books on. the controls and dial were recessed into the top. That also was still working when last I saw it.

[aerofox.livejournal.com]

I've always favored the floor models over the table models as they usually have better performance and sound... as well as in the 80s, i would get more "bang for the buck" as most collectors would favor table.models.

so my barn is full of them ^^
http://www.bright.net/~geary

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I suspect you've reached the point where they are breeding out there when you aren't looking. XD

Watch out for those Zenith-GE hybrids, they can have a nasty temper.

[fandt4.livejournal.com]

That's a very decent looking GE you have there. Why anyone would toss out a complete vintage console radio is beyond me, barring space reasons, and even then, it's near blasphemy. ;p

I am left with only one working console radio at the present time, a Rogers Batteryless of similar age to the GE pictured above, though I had two other Philco radios of the pre to mid-WWII era. And, as hypocritical as it may sound, space reasons really did force me to get rid of them.

Radios of this era are fascinating, but I've found that keeping them in operable condition can be quite costly, depending on the model rarity and the array of various tubes required. While they are fine to simply look at, nothing beats the warm sound of vacuum tubes.

Good luck with the future restoration. : D

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Well, I have suspicions as to the why. I think someone's marriage is on the rocks. All the kids are in college now, and he's almost never home. She's a Martha Stewart fanatic type and if he's actually moved out, she's tossing his "old junk".

If it's as old as lobowolf suggests, then I doubt it's a family heirloom in either of their families. He probably got it somewhere because it looked interesting and then never did anything with it.

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

A GE H-31

http://www.mcclellans.com/images/RadioCollection/Dandridge/DynamicDemoGE.JPG

http://www.mcclellans.com/NewRadiosPage.htm

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

Except the H-31 doesn't seem to have the doors. Aerofox would know. Anyway, 1929-1930 TRF set, probably an 80, a bunch of 26's for RF stages, a 27 for a rectifier, and a 45 for a power output tube. If the 45 is still there, don't break it...they're as rare as hen's teeth and (as we say in New England) wicked expensive :P

[lobowolf.livejournal.com]

Oh, and I think it was actually manufactured by RCA...GE did that in late 20's and early 30's (again, Aerofox would know ;)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! You beat aerofox to the answer. Obviously, ours is a different cabinet style, but probably the same circuit.

That McClellan collection is pretty impressive and certainly shiny. I'd love to have just one of those old Atwater Kents. And I've hungered after one of those old "farm" sets in the cathedral or tombstone shape for a long time. The only affordable ones I find are always gutted and losing all their veneer.

[aerofox.livejournal.com]

My gawd.... talk about "neatly displayed"!

Maybe someday my collection will be that neat.

and thanks for the model number! I'm sure its the GE equivalent of the Radiola 82 ^_^
*hugs da wuff!*

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

O.O

Goodness knows what kind of news broadcasts that thing has shouted out in it's time. Maybe the famous coverage of the Hindenburg disaster. The outbreak of WWII. JFK's assasination. The mind boggles.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes. My first thought was actually of the classic radio drama and comedy, something I'm very fond of when I can listen to it, but you're right about the news too. Quite possibly the Hindenberg and almost certainly World War II news. Franklin Roosevelt's famous fireside chats, as well.

Now the JFK assassination is probably too late. By then, everyone was watching television and this set was already stored somewhere gathering dust, but I'll bet it covered the bombing of Japan at the end of the war, and that infamous election where the press declared Dewey the winner but Truman actually won the presidency.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

Don't you love big rubbish days :D

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Sometimes, yeah. :)

[saythename.livejournal.com]

Wow! Now thats a find!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, really amazing to find something like that so complete and undamaged. It needs restoration work, but everything is there, even the original cloth-covered power cord (that you wouldn't dare plug in now.)

[tarirat.livejournal.com]

A *very* nice save!!! You have had more luck than I did when I lived at home... I had a mid-50's Nord Mende Sterling Cosima console (AM/FM/2 shortwave bands/turntable, magic eye, all working perfectly, with a cherry wood veneer, the whole thing was in near perfect shape after I carefully cleaned it inside and out) that my parents threw out when I was like 16, there was nothing I could do about it... *GRRRRRRR* and they also threw out an Edison phonograph player (that wasn't working, but I was sure I could fix) and a stack of Edison records... my parents are philistines sometimes...
:o(

[wolfgrowl.livejournal.com]

My sister had a working 1939 wurlitzer juke box she bought at a garge sale for 13$ and she paid a friend $5 for delivery when we were kids. Even though we had tons of storage for some reason my Mom wouldn't let her keep it. A friend gave her $20 and took it away.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I had a Stromberg-Carlson from that era when I was in high school. A neighbor gave it to me. Those magic eye tuners were weird like mad scientist stuff. Very helpful for tuning in the FM stations though on that narrow little dial. That stayed around until I was in college. I think they asked if I wanted it when I moved to my own apartment but I had no room for it and it was much too large and heavy. I don't know where it went.

*shrugs* Don't ask me why...

[gabrielhorse.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... looks cool. For some reason, I like older radio models over the newer ones... not usually the way I am about devices, but for some reason, I think older radios have a charm to them. Best of luck on the restoration.

Re: *shrugs* Don't ask me why...

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Heh. Real radios glow in the dark and have warmth for a winter night.

The appeal to me of this sort of radio is also the history. When it was made, there was no television, no internet, no computers. This radio was undoubtedly much more important to its first few owners than any radio is to the average person today. Radio programs were often broadcast live with real musicians in the studio. The radio was the single fastest source of news when there were breaking events or disasters. Real art went into producing the programming, along with a lot of imagination.

And as Avon pointed out, this particular one is old enough that it was probably used to "listen in" on events like the Hindenburg crash, the declaration of war against Japan in 1941, and famous voices like FDR, Harry Truman, and Winston Churchill.