http://chicago.craigslist.org/nwc/atq/1579089992.html

This radio is a not an antique! Its a modern radio that looks to be antique.

....Yeah, an' if he had a CT-100, no doubt he'd gut it, & put a new marvellous LCD or plasma set in...Philistine. Grrrrrr...

I fear it's only going to get worse. There are a bunch of modern radios with a vintage look.
Here are some examples of new Philcos. Yuck!

Not long ago, I bought a couple '60's radios from a lady. While I was there, she showed me one of those '34 AK replica tombstones. She thought it was the real thing (yeah, they had cassettes in 1934); but, she listened to what I had to say.

Back in the early '90's when I started looking for antique radios, people were all the time calling me with some line like, "I have this very old radio and I'll let it go cheap". I'd go 20 miles out in the country only to find a cheap imported portable transistor radio from the '80's. What was so sad is that many of the sellers were old people. People who you'd think would know better. I finally got to the point where if I couldn't determine that it was at least a tube radio over the phone, I didn't go any further.

Just recently, I placed an ad in the paper in search of old TV's with knobs from the '40's-early '70's. Almost every call I got was from people wanting to sell me their black plastic crap wal-mart junk.

I see Grundig replicas on Ebay, and unfortunately they are selling too. Nothing compares to a real Grundig!

I do not believe for one second they are stupid; they simply don't know any better, by virtue of their age.

Most people outside of AK/VK do not know the difference between a replica and a true antique radio, even if it has a cassette player or whatever. To most folks outside our hobby, anything with a cabinet that even looks antique (as they may remember their grandparents' first radio, etc.) is an antique radio, to them anyway. Most people alive today are far too young to have lived through the '20s and '30s, so they have a hazy idea at best (if they have any idea at all) of what a real antique radio is.

The lady or young woman who said "(yes), they had cassettes in 1934" quite frankly did not know what she was talking about. (Philips, after all, did not invent the compact cassette until 1964.) She may have been a teenager or in her 20s-30s and may not (probably doesn't) remember when cassettes were the preferred medium for music listening; her remark about cassettes in 1934, therefore, would have been (in fact is) conjecture and completely misleading.

This sort of thing proves my point. Practically (or actually) no one more than a few years under about 80 years old (and there are very few of that generation still living) would have owned a true antique radio when it was new. Most of today's antique radio collectors are at least a couple of generations younger than folks who actually remember and lived through the days when radio was in its infancy. Today's teenagers and young adults, who grew up (or are growing up) with CDs, mp3s and DVDs, think vinyl phonograph records and the machines on which they were played are relics of the Stone Age--the word "phonograph" itself is foreign to that generation as well. Moreover, these kids cannot imagine a time when there were no such things as VCRs, let alone DVD players, streaming video, high-definition flat-panel TV, or any of the whiz-bang modern technology we take for granted today.

My generation, all of whom who were born in the '50s (the start of the "baby boom" generation; I was born in 1956 and am 53.5 years old now), grew up with 8-track tape and audio cassettes, two music formats that are obsolete today and are absolutely foreign to today's teens and young adults. Look at today's automotive stereo systems. Most of them (in fact, all such systems nowadays) do not even have audio cassette decks, having instead CD players and HD digital radio tuners, to say nothing of inputs for iPods and amplifiers which can blow your head off at full volume.

What goes around comes around. My '60s-'70s generation liked loud rock music as well, which is why many people of my generation are today severely hard of hearing or almost deaf--it came from years of listening to hard rock at full volume, through speakers or headphones.

Listening to hard rock at extremely high volume levels through the latter (or even through speakers if the listener is close enough to them) is a sure way to wreck one's hearing over time. I am reminded of the story of two older men at a motorcycle convention at which there much loud noise from poorly-muffled motorcycle engines. The first man said to his friend, "Listen to all that noise -- sheeesh! These kids will be deaf by the time they are forty years old." His friend replied, "I doubt that -- I've been riding these things for years and I'm still alive!" The second man, whose hearing had been severely damaged by years of listening to loud engines and probably loud hard rock music when he was a younger man, mistakenly thought his friend had said "those kids will be dead by the time they are 40 . . ."



When I was a teenager in the late '60s and '70s, 8-track tape was the rage, followed by audio cassettes the following decade (1980s and until CDs arrived). Try to tell a Generation Y (or whatever today's generation of teenagers is called) teenager that you used to listen to, say, the Grass Roots (a late-1960s rock group) on eight-track tape or audio cassette when you were growing up, and the kid may not (probably won't) believe you. Kids today, unfortunately (the 20- or 30-somethings here on VK, if any, excepted) only know the technology with which they grew up; to them, anything older than, say, 15 or 20 years is "antique" or even ancient. This is why so many 1950s-'60s TVs listed on eBay and CL are referred to by the sellers as antiques, even though the true definition of "antique" (one of the definitions, anyway; there may be others) as applied to electronics is something made 50+ years ago--equipment which was made 25-30 years ago is considered vintage. I recently saw a 1960s Zenith three-way color console on eBay that was listed as an antique; if this set had been in fact manufactured in the year 1960, it would be a true antique today, going by that definition.

However, the TV in question was probably made in the mid-'60s, so it does not qualify as an antique just yet, but it is a vintage piece, and a beautiful piece of furniture in its own right. Kinda' makes me wish I had room for one, as I like older gear in fine dark wood cabinets, but my apartment is far too small; the best I could hope for would be a Magnavox vertical entertainment center from the '60s (it could very well fit in the space where my TV/video cabinet is now), but those are scarce, even on eBay or CL. I'm lucky if I see one on the former site every couple of months or so; I honestly do not remember the last time I saw a vertical Maggie entertainment unit on CL. Did most of them get snapped up by collectors (or :eek: trashed) in the '80s-'90s? :scratch2:

Jeff, I'm a year behind you-a June '57 model-and I'm ASTOUNDED that 1960 is 50 FREAKIN' YEARS AGO....I remember 1960...Outside all the time unless it was cold and/or rainy...Daddy cookin' steaks, hamburgers, hotdogs on the outside grill...Me puttin' sticks in the grill, pullin' 'em out & watchin' 'em burn...Playing w/Ikey, the neighbor's dog, & Pudgie, our Pug...Goin' for rides in Mama's '58 Bel Air...My mom, & 3 out of 4 granparents still alive...The Zenith 24" B/W that when you turned it off still had that little white dot that took about 30 seconds to go away...The warm, homey smell TVs & record players gave off then...The TV & radio talkin' about some mean, hateful dude named Caster or Castro, & some place called The Congo..or was that a dance ? To the Young Adults of today, that's all ancient History...Mama wearin' Pedal Pushers 'n' sleeveless tops, tryin' to stay cool in the summer...She was killing herself, smokin' 2-3 packs a day...

I'm from the '53 production run, and remember 1960 being in 1st grade being yelled at by pissed-off nuns in Catholic grammar school. And soon after, TV sets were placed in the classrooms (to watch educational shows on channel 13), and teachers rarely used them
http://www.wa2ise.com/radios/classtv.jpg Also remember vaguely about the Cuban missile crisis and duck and cover. And I saw nearly live on TV the JFK assassination. And I remember Fred Flinstone and Barney Rubble hawking Winston cigarettes on TV.

I'm from the '53 production run, and remember 1960 being in 1st grade being yelled at by pissed-off nuns in Catholic grammar school. And soon after, TV sets were placed in the classrooms (to watch educational shows on channel 13), and teachers rarely used them
http://www.wa2ise.com/radios/classtv.jpg Also remember vaguely about the Cuban missile crisis and duck and cover. And I saw nearly live on TV the JFK assassination. And I remember Fred Flinstone and Barney Rubble hawking Winston cigarettes on TV.

Unlike you, I was born in '72 and had a 'public' education(despite being raised Catholic). Even in the late '70's-early '80's my elementary school was still using older b&w and color TV sets, ditto machines and suitcase record players. We had 2 Apple computers for the entire school, and each grade had to take turns using them. The record players were all Webcor's and they had tubes!:yes: (I saw the janitor fix one once) How times change. I think I even remember one of the records my teacher used to play:
"There was an old lady who swallowed a fly...I don't know why she swallowed a fly...I guess she'll die....":D

I was born in '75 and clearly remember buying 8-tracks new in the early 80's. I also remember:

When cable television was run to our subdivision (c.1981)
A Cobra cordless phone my dad won in a sales contest, 3+ foot antenna, pulse dial and a range of about 15 feet (c.1982/83)
Beepers that produced two different tone signals and were the size of a garage door opener.
My uncle's car phone that looked like a rotary princess with a bunch of buttons below the dial and iirc a push-to-talk button on the handset.
The talking Coke machine ('85?)
The Commodore 64, TRS-80, and a Commodore twenty-something that ran on a cassette tape drive
Mono FM radio in Dad's '85 Impala, the touch screen display in the '86 Riviera
Top & bottom of the hour signals on radio & TV, live booth announcers on TV stations
Heck, we didn't have a VCR until Christmas 1991.

As a young child, I asked my parents and grandmother about conditions when they grew up - I was interested in that. My grandmother remembered the first electric light and telephone they got, using outhouses and bathing in a metal washtub in the kitchen. This was in the city of New Orleans mind you, not in the woods somewhere. Riding on horse & buggy, her sister giving her a small crystal radio set in the early twenties.

Most kids after my generation though couldn't care less though - they're too busy texting, envying someone else's car/clothes/etc., getting drunk/high...with all the technological advancements in the last twenty years the kids today are leading very shallow lives. They have the world at their fingertips and they piss it away on Twitter. (Twit being the key)

My mother's mother was born in 1889 & died 1992-She said the thing that "Wowed" her the most was when she saw her 1st airplane. She had memories of brass-radiator T models-Ford quit making brass-era cars in 1915, IIRC. Her husband-my granfather-had a BEAUTIFUL "Morning Glory" Victrola that got lost in a family squabble after he died in '29. I'd give my eyeteeth for it...Assuming its still around...

My mother's mother was born in 1889 & died 1992-She said the thing that "Wowed" her the most was when she saw her 1st airplane. She had memories of brass-radiator T models-Ford quit making brass-era cars in 1915, IIRC. Her husband-my granfather-had a BEAUTIFUL "Morning Glory" Victrola that got lost in a family squabble after he died in '29. I'd give my eyeteeth for it...Assuming its still around...

My grandma is still alive and she is 90. She has a '46 Zenith Hopplewhite radio/record player console in her basement right now. It's got mildew growin' on it, and it hasn't been used in at least 30 years. I told her never to use it again...it needs a complete electronic restoration. She only listens to music on her digital clock radio now anyways.

If you can, & she's able, get her to tell you what things were like back then...Mine really died in '86 when she fell & broke her hip, & never really came out of the anastetic...She was in the nursing home from then on, & her mind was active for awhile...Lotsa times, they can remember 75, 80 yrs ago clear as a bell, but 5 minutes ago never happened...

I was born in '75 and clearly remember buying 8-tracks new in the early 80's. I also remember:

When cable television was run to our subdivision (c.1981)
A Cobra cordless phone my dad won in a sales contest, 3+ foot antenna, pulse dial and a range of about 15 feet (c.1982/83)
Beepers that produced two different tone signals and were the size of a garage door opener.
My uncle's car phone that looked like a rotary princess with a bunch of buttons below the dial and iirc a push-to-talk button on the handset.
The talking Coke machine ('85?)
The Commodore 64, TRS-80, and a Commodore twenty-something that ran on a cassette tape drive
Mono FM radio in Dad's '85 Impala, the touch screen display in the '86 Riviera
Top & bottom of the hour signals on radio & TV, live booth announcers on TV stations
Heck, we didn't have a VCR until Christmas 1991.

As a young child, I asked my parents and grandmother about conditions when they grew up - I was interested in that. My grandmother remembered the first electric light and telephone they got, using outhouses and bathing in a metal washtub in the kitchen. This was in the city of New Orleans mind you, not in the woods somewhere. Riding on horse & buggy, her sister giving her a small crystal radio set in the early twenties.

Most kids after my generation though couldn't care less though - they're too busy texting, envying someone else's car/clothes/etc., getting drunk/high...with all the technological advancements in the last twenty years the kids today are leading very shallow lives. They have the world at their fingertips and they piss it away on Twitter. (Twit being the key)

That last paragraph says a lot about kids today.

I was born in '76 and lets see what I remember:

A. I too remember 8-track tapes being sold new in stores. Somewhere around '84, I remember buying (or, my Dad buying for me) a waylon jennings 8-track at a gas station in GA.
B. Rotary dial phones. We still had one in use as late as '99.
C. TV's where you had to actually get up to change the channel. Many of which were tube sets.
D. I can remember when "mobile phones" were huge in size by today's standards and were only carried by Doctors and other business people.
E. The "talking cash registers" at the new grocery store that came along around '83.
F. I remember the first computer I ever saw was my older Sister's Apple 2C.
G. I remember when VCR's were getting hot. We got our first one, a panasonic built Magnavox, in late '86.
H. I remember when schools still used film projectors of all types, record players, cassette players, reel-to-reel tape players, and those big metal RCA color TV's and Sony U-Matic tape machines on roll about carts.
I. I also remember when they'd still tear your butt up in school if you acted up (although I came in on the tail end of that era).
J. I remember actually going to people's houses out in the country who were on "well water".
K. I remember going to my Aunt's house, who didn't get indoor plumbing until sometime in the '90's. They were poor as church mice; but, were the finest people you'd ever want to meet. I enjoyed going to her house much better than going to the other Aunt's house, who was very snooty and was always trying to put on a show.

OK, that's enough memories for now.

Oh yeah, my first computer was a TRS-80, given to me by someone around '88. It had a green monochrome monitor and the software was contained on three different types of media: A cartridge that plugged into the side of the computer, cassette tape, or 5 1/4" floppy disk. The disk drives were huge and connected to the computer via an interface that plugged into the cartridge slot. I later picked up one of those early '80's 10" solid state GE color TV's and used that for a monitor.

Somewhere around '83, my Dad bought a basic stripped Ford Fairmont and, IIRC, it only had a cheap AM only radio. My Mother's '77 Mercury Cougar had an AM/FM/stereo 8-track radio.

The first TV in my room was an early '70's 9" GE solid state B&W in a leather case. I don't think I had my own color TV for my room until I was a teenager and that TV was something I found and fixed. And, there was never cable going to my room. I remember my Dad throwing a fit because he didn't want to drill a hole in the floor.

A lot of people in my generation and younger tend to not have time for old people. I, OTOH, always got along with the old folks better than people from my own generation. It would do the young crowd some good if they actually took the time to get to know some older people.

If you can, & she's able, get her to tell you what things were like back then...Mine really died in '86 when she fell & broke her hip, & never really came out of the anastetic...She was in the nursing home from then on, & her mind was active for awhile...Lotsa times, they can remember 75, 80 yrs ago clear as a bell, but 5 minutes ago never happened...

Been there, done that. Even better would be to get her to write lots of stuff down so that when she's gone, there is a written document for future generations of family members. My dad's dad came to the US as a 10-year-old refugee from E. Europe (in 1913!). When he was alive, my paternal grandma made him write down details of his trip to America in the bottom of a ship that arrived in Baltimore, MD. Gramps grew up to become the first radio engineer in this area. He was into radio and tubes when it was still called "wireless". His tube stock, technical manuals, Sams Photofacts, and even his radio operator's study guide from 1924, are still in the family. :thmbsp:

This radio is a not an antique! Its a modern radio that looks to be antique.Yes well alot of people do not know the value of a GOOD RADIO nor do they care,all they know is it works and they can make $$$ off it...... (Sad reality)

We all on this site do know the value and can tell the difference (Looking inside @ the parts used would tip you off)

I'm thinkin' the only sets that might stump one of us would be those Xonex reproductions of the 1936 Sparton Bluebirds...And I doubt even we would be fooled for vey long. Were any of those actually ever even MADE ? Another one might be one of the 5 or 10 R-390As that were made in 1985...But I think those are all accounted for, too.

For people being fooled, watch the History Channel series "Pawn Stars". There is always someone trying to sell the shop a reproduction or fake.

In one episode a person was trying to sell the shop a 16th century battle ax.
It turns out that he had a reproduction that was made in the Victorian era-even the reproduction was old!.

With radios, the lack of vacuum tubes in a reproduction is an obvious clue!!!.

I can remember when radio DJs were real people who actually spun records on turntables and used cartridges that looked like 8-tracks to play the station's jingles, not to mention giving time checks every few songs (today's voice-tracking systems used by many stations do not allow for that, especially when one or more of the voice-tracked stations are in different time zones), when small-town local radio stations signed off at sunset rather than cutting power to 2 watts or whatever, when television stations had booth announcers (channel 3 in Cleveland had a few really good ones, as did 5, eight and the UHF stations; sometimes I wonder how TV stations today get away with simply showing [at the top and bottom of each hour] a slide or whatever, with a promo for a show and the station's call sign and location [the latter often in tiny type that's nearly impossible to read] and a voice, almost certainly not one of the station's own announcers, intoning the name of the show being advertised, followed by "at 4 p. m. on channel 2" [for example]).

And the list goes on. I also remember very large automobiles with frames under them ("unibody" construction of smaller vehicles didn't begin in the US until perhaps some time in the early 1980s), slide-rule radio dials for home and car radios, actual slide rules, the first shirt-pocket size electronic calculators, Commodore's VIC-20 and Commodore 64 home computers that used the BASIC operating system (I had a C64 in the '80s), the Altair 6800 series computers, which were the first "home computers" in the US, although they were intended for computer hobbyists as they used an extremely clumsy and complicated method of programming (toggle switches which represented the 1's and zeros of the binary system used by all computers, then as now), the Atari 400 computer with its plug-in cartridges for the operating system and pinhead-size memory (by today's standards; I had such a computer in the '80s before I got my C64), knob tuned TVs, the first digitally-tuned TVs (Zenith had a 12-inch solid-state portable in the '80s which used a keypad and an LED digital display to show the selected channel number, not to mention the first sets with OSD [on-screen display] digital tuning; these sets show up on eBay every now and then), 8-track and cassette tape (I'm presently ripping my 60+ audio cassettes into my computer to bring them into the 21st century), and so on.

Ah, memories. It's interesting to take a look back to see just how much technology has evolved over the years. However, since time only goes forward (there is no such thing as "going back" in time, the 1960s TV cartoon character Mr. Peabody's "wayback machine" notwithstanding), all we have now are our memories of those earlier technologies, all of which of course become obsolete after X number of years. Even today's technology is becoming obsolete at an amazing pace: audio CDs are being replaced by downloadable mp3 files, portable and mobile audio and video are set to become the media of choice (if these formats haven't already started to force CDs into obsolescence) in automobiles and for people on the go . . .

Who can forget the joke that became popular in the early days of the Internet: technology changes so quickly that the computer you may buy today will be obsolete as soon as you're out the door with it?

Unfortunately, however, the foregoing is not a joke anymore, 20+ years after the Internet revolution began. Technology is changing so rapidly it is incredible. Most of the stuff I have in my apartment (10-year-old IBM computer running Windows 98SE, 10-year-old Aiwa stereo system, decade-old RCA XL-100 TV, eight-year-old Panasonic VCR, even my just-18-month-old Memorex DVD player, to say nothing of my ham radio gear) is already obsolete at least a couple of times over (!). The computer is already so terribly out of date that I'm having problems finding new application software for it. For example, I wanted to download a free beta version of Microsoft Office 2010 last night (as if I really needed it; I already have the office suite CD that came with my computer). I clicked the download link, waited a few seconds, then a screen appeared with a tab that would show the program's system requirements. I clicked on that tab and found, not surprisingly, that the program would run only on Windows XP, Vista and, presumably, Windows 7.

Again, it's the changes in technology that are eventually forcing once top-of-the-line computers and everything else into obsolescence. This is called "planned obsolescence" for a reason: so that the manufacturers of the new whiz-bang technology can get their wares into stores and make a killing selling it; this also means that the older technology, more often than not, is either shoved into a closet and forgotten when the new stuff arrives or else is recycled. Personally, I intend to run my Windows 98 computer and all the rest of my "cyber-stone age" equipment as long as it works. Since I live on a fixed income (disability), I cannot afford to replace anything I currently own, with the possible exception of my TVs when they both go belly-up.I can get a 15" Philips-Magnavox flat-panel set for under $200 at Best Buy and elsewhere; who knows about the future? The day will eventually come when we will be able to get really large-panel HDTVs for very reasonable prices; I'm looking forward to it, believe me.

"[B]Stop the world -- I wanna get off!" No, not really. I like new technology and wish I could afford it, but sometimes these breakneck-speed technology changes make me wish I could go back to a simpler time, say the late '60s-'70s, when I was growing up. Personal computers (the first of which were the switch-programmable Altair 6800 series) didn't arrive until 1975, the year I graduated high school, and I didn't get my first one (keyboard and floppy-disk programmable with a disk drive) until 1982, seven years later.

However, who could have imagined in the late '60s, for example, that people would eventually (thirty-five years later) be watching televisions that could hang on a wall, like framed art? The early 1960s TV series The Jetsons showed that family living with just such a TV in their living room of one unit of the "SkyPad Apartments", their newspaper being "delivered" to them over the same screen, a robot maid, schoolchildren being given "report tapes" rather than hard-copy printed report cards, and even robot teachers, to say nothing of other space-age technology, a lot of which is in use today. One episode of that show that really cracked me up (there were others that were just as funny if not more so, but this one took the cake) was when one of the robot teachers in Elroy Jetson's classroom started repeating itself, banging itself on the side of its metal head (with two horizontal antennas protruding from either side) and saying, in a computer synthesized voice, "Sorry. I must have a short in one of my transistors!" This was followed by the class clown imitating the teacher, even to the point of smacking his own head and repeating what the robot had just said. The boy was sent to the principal's office for his uncalled-for antics, of course. (Some things never change.)

Hmmm. I wonder why TV Land or Nick at Nite, etc. do not eventually get the old Jetsons programs in syndication? :scratch2: I bet that show would be a huge hit with today's Internet- and technology-savvy kids, and would probably leave their parents (many of whom, like myself, are old enough to remember having watched the program on NBC Saturday mornings as kids) flabbergasted, the reason being that the stuff shown on the program was science fiction when it was new; no one had any idea that such technology actually would be in widespread use in American homes 35 years later.

As a sidenote-unibody construction of cars(at Ford anyway) was underway in 1960 with the the Ford Falcon. I have a 1963 model. I am not sure about the other makes. Front wheel drive did begin in earnest in the 1980s, although GM made a model that used front wheel drive in the 1960s.

"There is nothing new under the Sun..." You really have to go back to almost the beginning of the auto age to find the 1st Unibody... Budd Body Co. was experimenting w/them in the thirties, as was our old pal Bucky Fuller. The Lincoln Zephyr of 1935 was one of the 1st unibody cars in America, & there's evidence that Ferdinand Porsche took a long, hard look at some of the 1933 World's Fair prototypes of the Lincoln before he penned the 1st Volkswagen..The Zephyr was originally sposed to have a Ford V-8 mounted in the tail, & they DO bear a striking resemblence to prototype Beetles. Lincoln stayed w/ unibody construction for at least 2 remarkable periods in their history, the 1958-60 model, w/a 131" wheelbase & 430 CID engine was the largest unibody car up til that time, & the 1961-69 "Suicide door" version.

Another sidenote... Didn't Chrysler introduce a form of anti-lock brakes in the early '70's for the Imperial? I think the option was available for one model year because it was way too expensive... oh and also the 1974 model cars with the seatbelt interlock that also lasted one model year.

As a sidenote-unibody construction of cars(at Ford anyway) was underway in 1960 with the the Ford Falcon. I have a 1963 model. I am not sure about the other makes. Front wheel drive did begin in earnest in the 1980s, although GM made a model that used front wheel drive in the 1960s.

Unlike you, I was born in '72 and had a 'public' education(despite being raised Catholic). Even in the late '70's-early '80's my elementary school was still using older b&w and color TV sets, ditto machines and suitcase record players. We had 2 Apple computers for the entire school, and each grade had to take turns using them. The record players were all Webcor's and they had tubes!:yes: (I saw the janitor fix one once) How times change. I think I even remember one of the records my teacher used to play:
"There was an old lady who swallowed a fly...I don't know why she swallowed a fly...I guess she'll die....":D

I graduated high school in 1985 and we still had a lot of that stuff, old B&W TV's (I remember one was made in 1966, the year I was born, it was used as a monitor for an Apple ][+ computer for mass viewing), 16mm projectors, (many still used tubes), record players, filmstrip projectors, ditto machines (I love the smell of newly made dittoes). We had several Apple ][ computers, Apple //c's came along in 1984, the sole IBM-PC was used by the counseling department (and the vice principal threatened to break our arm if we touched it). The computer lab had networked TRS-80 Model III's hooked to a master Model III (later Model IV) and a printer. It was a good network, the downside is if you hit reset, to get yourself back in, the entire network had to be rebooted. We did have some color TV with VCR's along with Sony 1 inch reel-to-reel videotape recorders and 3/4 inch U-Matics.

My grandma is still alive and she is 90. She has a '46 Zenith Hopplewhite radio/record player console in her basement right now. It's got mildew growin' on it, and it hasn't been used in at least 30 years. I told her never to use it again...it needs a complete electronic restoration. She only listens to music on her digital clock radio now anyways.

My grandmother will be 95 next month.

I. I also remember when they'd still tear your butt up in school if you acted up (although I came in on the tail end of that era).


I know, I remember I got paddled in 1974 for getting into a fight with a bully picking on me in 2nd grade. We both got paddled by the principal. My parents never found out. Being a nerdy type, I had my fair share of bullies coming after me. I remember complaining to Mom about it and she said, "you have to stand up for yourself and be brave." So I did and got paddled for it. After that, we became good friends for life, up until he died in 1987 in a car accident, falling off a mountain in Italy while he was in the Army. Anyways, I kept my mouth shut. A day passed, nothing, whew, then a week, then a month and so on. I was in the clear. Looking back, I know my mother would not have punished me and would even congradulate me and tell me the world isn't fair sometimes. However, being 8 years old, the kid logic kicks in so being quiet is the best thing to do. :D

Oh yeah, my first computer was a TRS-80, given to me by someone around '88. It had a green monochrome monitor and the software was contained on three different types of media: A cartridge that plugged into the side of the computer, cassette tape, or 5 1/4" floppy disk. The disk drives were huge and connected to the computer via an interface that plugged into the cartridge slot. I later picked up one of those early '80's 10" solid state GE color TV's and used that for a monitor.

Somewhere around '83, my Dad bought a basic stripped Ford Fairmont and, IIRC, it only had a cheap AM only radio. My Mother's '77 Mercury Cougar had an AM/FM/stereo 8-track radio.

The first TV in my room was an early '70's 9" GE solid state B&W in a leather case. I don't think I had my own color TV for my room until I was a teenager and that TV was something I found and fixed. And, there was never cable going to my room. I remember my Dad throwing a fit because he didn't want to drill a hole in the floor.

A lot of people in my generation and younger tend to not have time for old people. I, OTOH, always got along with the old folks better than people from my own generation. It would do the young crowd some good if they actually took the time to get to know some older people.

I've always was the same way too, I always talked with the older people. I still have a 1977 Mercury Cougar, I'd like to get it running again whenever I get the funds for it.

Been there, done that. Even better would be to get her to write lots of stuff down so that when she's gone, there is a written document for future generations of family members. My dad's dad came to the US as a 10-year-old refugee from E. Europe (in 1913!). When he was alive, my paternal grandma made him write down details of his trip to America in the bottom of a ship that arrived in Baltimore, MD. Gramps grew up to become the first radio engineer in this area. He was into radio and tubes when it was still called "wireless". His tube stock, technical manuals, Sams Photofacts, and even his radio operator's study guide from 1924, are still in the family. :thmbsp:

Amen! Some of the stories show the true courage of the folks that actually "led the good life" - my Grandfather was a young German immigrant, a businessman, a farmer, and lived in 4 different states during his lifetime. I would absolutely give anything to have had time to get to know him. He was dead 10 years before I was born, and was he was born 100 years before my baby sister. Yes, he fathered his last child in his 70's! :thmbsp:

We have a WWII vet at church that's a Silver Star hero, decorated by the US and the Belgians. His humble stories are probably the best I've ever listened to - and I don't mind to hear some of them twice. He tells of a yearlong saga in getting to carry a rifle - seems he didn't get to carry one after basic, then was made a bazooka man, and finally got his first rifle - off a dead German soldier!


Cheers,

"There is nothing new under the Sun..." You really have to go back to almost the beginning of the auto age to find the 1st Unibody... Budd Body Co. was experimenting w/them in the thirties, as was our old pal Bucky Fuller. The Lincoln Zephyr of 1935 was one of the 1st unibody cars in America, & there's evidence that Ferdinand Porsche took a long, hard look at some of the 1933 World's Fair prototypes of the Lincoln before he penned the 1st Volkswagen..The Zephyr was originally sposed to have a Ford V-8 mounted in the tail, & they DO bear a striking resemblence to prototype Beetles. Lincoln stayed w/ unibody construction for at least 2 remarkable periods in their history, the 1958-60 model, w/a 131" wheelbase & 430 CID engine was the largest unibody car up til that time, & the 1961-69 "Suicide door" version.

Sandy, I always thought the VW Beetle looked like a '34 Chrysler Airflow. I could be wrong. They had real rounded bodies like a Beetle had.

Sandy, I always thought the VW Beetle looked like a '34 Chrysler Airflow. I could be wrong. They had real rounded bodies like a Beetle had.

First of all, wow, this thread has wandered! Secondly Kingfisher, you are correct.

Quotes rom Allpar.com:

Aerodynamics

W.P. Chrysler also enjoyed having a reputation as an innovator. He first made his name in the business by pioneering four-wheel brakes
in the United States in the 1920s, and, rather than being dictatorial, he encouraged his engineers to examine new and better ways of doing things.

One of his engineers who did just that was Carl Breer. One evening while at the wheel of his car, he noticed the similarity between the shape of then-current airplanes and that of birds, and began musing how archaic auto design was in comparison. In the late Twenties, most automotive design could be characterized as one box stacked on another. All the car's equipment -- lights, horn, bumpers, spare tire -- were hung somewhere on the two boxes and allowed to wave in the breeze.

Just from eyeballing some airplanes, Breer intuitively got the impression that taking a similar approach to automotive design could result in some real benefits. He contacted a Dayton, Ohio-based engineer named Bill Earnshaw, who in turn contacted the co-inventor of the airplane, Orville Wright, and before long they were testing shapes in a small wind tunnel. Seeing the progress was being made, Breer then authorized the construction of a larger wind tunnel at Chrysler's Highland Park, Michigan, research center with the full support of Walter P. Chrysler himself.

One of Breer's earliest and most startling findings was that the conventional sedan of that era (circa 1930) was actually more aerodynamically efficient traveling in reverse than moving forward. The reason for this was the abrupt, nearly vertical tail of then-current automobiles, which created turbulence and a partial vacuum that acted as an invisible anchor.

Uni-body

A final pioneering advance of the (1934) Airflow was its unique frame. Instead of a simple "ladder" of beams and girders that characterized most chassis construction of the time, the Airflow used a "space-frame" not unlike the best contemporary aeronautic practice. Where virtually all automotive bodies of the early Thirties were separate structures that were bolted to the frame, the Airflow's frame ran up the fender line, across the cowl and encircled the door openings. In many ways it was very similar to the construction method used on today's Saturn automobiles in that the body panels are hung from the chassis, and it anticipated so-called unit-construction that is ubiquitous today.

VW Beetle, late 30s prototype

http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/03/magazine_the_vw_beetle/img/1.jpg

http://classic-car.y2u.co.uk/Photo_caq/Volkswagen_Beetle_05.jpg


1934 Chrysler Airflow coupe (production model) and 1931 prototype

http://www.rmauctions.com/images/cars/mb09/MB09_r121_01.jpg

http://www.classicaldrives.com/50226711/chryslerairflowcpe.jpg

http://pollockoffroad.com/gallery/albums/Cars/normal_1932_Chrysler_Trifon_Special_Airflow_Protot ype_Concept_Car_Brown_fvl_Garage_%28WPC_Museum%29_ CL.jpg

One of these cars is virtually art on wheels, the other a funding source for WWII Germany... Ironically later a symbol of anti-war counterculture.

Yeah, Carmine, we are digressing a bit. I gotta quit readin' so many books! :D Except for my last comment I've tried to keep the discussion related to tubes and radio. With a name like "Airflow" its a bit hard to forget the aerodynamics of such a car. (I wonder what kind of radios they had? :D)

Its really too bad the Airflows didn't sell better than they did-they really were ahead of their times. Chrysler did have a line of more "conventionally" styled cars along side the Airflows' 1934-37 run. By '38, most cars had incorporated the rounded styling of the Airflows, & they were beginning to look "dated" by then, anyhow, as there had been little styling changes in them since the beginning, except for minor trim reshufflings. The Airflow I'd love to have would be the Imperial CU-8 passenger version, very, very rare. But I ain't picky..If the opportunity presented itself, I'd happily "Make Do" w/a lowly Dodge or DeSoto 2 door version...

Taking this back to an old radio theme, Major Bowes (of radio fame) was driven about the country in an Airflow Imperial for his show, much like the one Sandy describes. You can read more at this link:


Major Bowes Airflow Imperial (http://books.google.com/books?id=DALX2AsrZTcC&pg=PA52&lpg=PA52&dq=major+bowes+radio+airflow&source=bl&ots=_R8UL63t3i&sig=iml0x26cpO-e8BJikGPW7mkBOdw&hl=en&ei=6DJuS7eIEsOh8Aar37CMBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CBAQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=major%20bowes%20radio%20airflow&f=false)

Sandy, the other more conventional line was called the "Airstream", and you won't find an Airflow Dodge... Imperial, Chrysler and Desoto were the only models to use the more advanced Airflow chassis. :thmbsp:

Yeah, Carmine, my bad...I've read about that Major Bowes Imperial...But had never seen detailed pix of it. Except for one "Elderly Gentleman in Reduced Circumstances" type example, I've never seen an Airflow in poison that I can remember.

As a sidenote-unibody construction of cars(at Ford anyway) was underway in 1960 with the the Ford Falcon. I have a 1963 model. I am not sure about the other makes. Front wheel drive did begin in earnest in the 1980s, although GM made a model that used front wheel drive in the 1960s.

The 1960 Chevy Corvair, GM's first unibody car, went on sale to the public in October of 1959.

The Olds Toronado was GM's first front wheel drive car. I believe it came out in '67.

The 1960 model Ford Falcon came out in 1959 also, about the same time as the Corvair. It is the same as the 1963 model, with only cosmetic changes.

The Toro came out in Fall '65 as a '66 model...Caddy used basically the same chassis & inner body for their version, the Eldorado, in '66, as a '67 model. Buick used it, too, for their Riviera, but they went w/a conventional RWD chassis... These cars were in production, w/basically only minor cosmetic changes til the '71 model year, the next time GM changed their "Standard Car" bodies. They were pretty much smash hits, the Eldo garnering sales of nearly 18K copies he 1st year-a remarkable showing for a "premium" car.

I was born in 1956. I was fortunate to tangle with 2 guys in my life that were BIG in 1) motion pictures, production, sound, and projection systems, and 2) a guy that was a walking encyclopedia on the history of broadcast television and radio in america.

When each of these guys died, I received the lions share of each of their hobbies: 16mm films, equipment, etc, and broadcast quality audio equipment, microphones, speakers, tube amps, a complete 16mm color RCA TK-28 film chain with projectors, and lots of new spare color camera tubes.

My source of income is from what I learned from the film guy. I work for a major theatre chain.

My love of things old come from the other guy. I love restoring old radios and anything with tubes.

I have 2 Webcor wire recorders that are re-capped and nice.

I drive an Olds Toronado built in 1985... the last year they used the front-facing V8 engine in the configuration. In 1986, the engine was turned sideways. It's a fine old car, and still totally dependable, with a newly rebuilt 4-speed (with overdrive) automatic transmission. Its still a regular driver for me.

I love this forum. You guys are great. I am sorry that I have not been around here more. There's been alot happening in my world lately, but things are getting better now.

Bruce McGee
Asheville, NC

Ugh. I found some more examples of repro - retro sets. A "predicta" and a "detrola" :yuck:

I was given a Thomas cathedral radio today by a friend that genuinely thought it was an antique. I didnt have the heart to tell him. I've heard about this old antique radio from him for years, and was surprised when he told me he was giving it to me.

I think it was built around 1982 or so. The little cassette player in the side gave it away, not to mention the plastic parts.