Help me date/identify this console

[ozmoid]

The local thrift has a Philco, bands are FM and BC (?), it is paired with a Victor turntable in a cabinet about the height of a sideboard, flat top. The TT cantilevers out when you open the door. The bottom half is a cabinet on one side (Album sized), mono speaker on the other.

I cannot easily access the interior to see what the amp looks like. I would assume tubes are still in place, it looks as if it has been stored in a shed for decades. Lots of dirt/dust build-up all around, and some leaves in the TT cab (that section is open at the back).

The TT looks very "Buck Rogers", art deco. They keep keep swapping the price around - it started at $39, dropped to $20, got marked up to $80 and put on sale for $50. Currently no price tag in evidence.

I have no experience with Radios, this just looked interesting to me.

[fotno]

Offer them 10 bucks, and oh yeah - and - Can I come over when your wife beats you senseless for dragging that thing home?

[Chad Hauris]

BC= Broadcast, back when AM was the "standard" broadcasting band.
If it has 88-108 Mhz FM then it is post-1946, probably from late 40's--early 50's.
By the late 50's they tended to go to the longer low style of console radio/phonos.

[ozmoid]

Originally Posted by fotno

Offer them 10 bucks, and oh yeah - and - Can I come over when your wife beats you senseless for dragging that thing home?

You want to go help me drag it out from under all that junk, then explain that we're not buying it, we just wanted a "photo op"?

Just askin...

I'll pack the camera.

[blue_lateral]

What you describe sounds kind of like late 40's. I take it it's a boxy thing? On a Philco of that vintage If you can get the model number, the first 2 digits are the model year. For example 39-116 (going on in another thread right now) is a 1939 model. I dont know why a Victor turntable, but a lot of old radio-phono combos got their 78-only changers replaced when LPs came along.

John

[ozmoid]

Thanks, blue_lateral, I appreciate you chiming in. This thing is a bit more "buried" now than it was when it first appeared. I avoided looking at it too closely then, too many projects on the table already, and limited storage space.( Now I'm thinking Fotno may store it for me ! Just don't tell his wife where it came from... she knows where I live.)

Seriously, I now think it is worth a closer look, even if I just pass it off to someone else who is interested in saving it. It is a cool looking piece, and I hate to see it sitting there neglected. I'll see if I can locate a model number without re-arranging the store...

(and BTW blue, good luck on the high-voltage wire!)

[ozmoid]

Thanks Sam, I'll also give that a try. Glad you stopped by, nice to see you!

Sorry Ozmoid, but I can't help you date. I'm sure your local library, internet dating service, or singles bar may help you in that regard. It's all in how much confidence you exude with the members of opposite sex, plus a measure of physical attraction and chemistry. And not being a jerk.

As for the Philco, IIRC my great-grandparents had one of those or something very similar in their farmhouse. Is the turntable a Victor Victrola? An interesting tidbit: did you know that the Victrola was where the term "payola" comes from? (Artists and producers pay-ing radio DJs to play their album on the Victr-ola). For $50 I do a little payola of my own and get it just for the novelty factor, so long as I had a huge amount of space and a very forgiving significant other.

[blue_lateral]

It might be something really cool. There were a bunch of consoles that looed like that (or I think looked like that, pics might be good, hint.... ). I'm imagining something boxy with a speaker in one corner, record storage in the other, and two "drawers" on top. One drawer is a turntable, the other a door to the radio. There were a bazillion consoles like this made right after world war two. I doubt if it's worth a lot of money, but it could still be a gem. The style was popular, so they run all the way from cheap to TOTL.

I had a GE like this about 15 years ago, and it really was a gem. I think it was actually prewar, but just barely. The speaker was in the middle, and the record storage was divided on both sides of it. It had a 78 only changer with a magnetic(!) cartridge. It had p-p 6v6 outputs. It was the best sounding 78 player I have ever heard. Since it was magnetic cartridge (that was extremely unusual for this era, I have never seen another), you could just plug in a turntable and play LP's. That sounded pretty good, too. It served as a "bedroom stereo" for quite a while.

I have seen Magnavoxes from this era with 4x-6v6 25 watt amplifiers, and several speakers. Hmmm.... If you could get two that matched..... Sheesh, I'm rambling now.

Hey Ozmoid, did you buy that Philco?

John

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by blue_lateral

What you describe sounds kind of like late 40's. I take it it's a boxy thing? On a Philco of that vintage If you can get the model number, the first 2 digits are the model year. For example 39-116 (going on in another thread right now) is a 1939 model. I dont know why a Victor turntable, but a lot of old radio-phono combos got their 78-only changers replaced when LPs came along.

John

Another surefire way to tell whether an AM/FM set is from the early or late 1940s is to look at the FM tuning dial. If it runs 88-108 MHz, the set is postwar vintage. If the FM band runs 42-49 MHz, the radio was made before WWII. Some early postwar Zenith AM/FM radios had both the 42-49 and the 88-108 FM bands, when stations were just beginning to switch from the old to the new frequency range. (Point of interest: The first FM radio station licensed to Cleveland, Ohio was WBOE-FM, operated by the city's board of education; the station operated, I think, on 43 MHz before switching to 90.3 when the new band was commissioned.) The old FM band is all but useless today, although one can still hear baby monitors and such (not to mention old cordless phones, the ones that operate on the old 46-49 MHz range before they all went to 900 MHz and higher) around 46 MHz.

Your comment about many old 78-rpm changers being replaced with 4-speed units in old radio-phono combos when LP records came into vogue got me to thinking. How many people ditched their 4-speed turntables when CD players were introduced? Most bookshelf stereo systems, my Aiwa CX-NA888 (made in 1999) among them, do not even have a turntable as standard equipment, although these turntables are (or were) available as options. However, the only turntable which will work with these systems is the original Aiwa turntable, which has a preamplifier stage. Try to use a standard turntable (no preamp) with this system and all you'll likely get is very weak or no sound.

Speaking of replacing 78-rpm changers with newer 4-speed units: If your treasured old radio-phono combo system has a preamplifier ahead of the output stage (these were very common in old Philco rp's that had the Beam-O-Light changer, for example; the output of the cartridge in these changers was quite low compared to modern ones), be sure to remove the preamp tubes, or otherwise disable the preamplifier stage(s), when you install the modern changer. This is to prevent the output stage from being overdriven by the high output of the modern cartridge (most antique r/p's had phonographs with very low output cartridges, hence the need for a preamp).

The Victor TT in that Philco you mention may have been a 4-speed LP changer, being used to replace the console's old 78-rpm turntable. Once LPs burst on the scene the 78's days (for the records themselves and single-speed turntables/changers) were numbered; eventually, the 78s...well, they didn't actually die (they show up on ebay every now and again), but, as the saying goes about old soldiers, they just faded away.