[Doug Houston]

Just got home from a radio meet, and a sort of nice 37-650 phonograph combination folloowed me home (in the back of my car). The cabinet is in pretty decent shape, and a good going over with Go-Jo should make it really nice. The speaker is missing, so if anyone hereabouts knows of one for sale, let me know....please.

I've only ever seen one other of these sets, and it was several years ago. It wa the first I'd known that there was such a model. The phono motor board uses an RCA magnetic pickup in their Inertia tone arm. I haven't checked who supplied the motor, but it doesn't appear to be RCA. So now, though it wasn't planned that way, I have the console (37-650X), the table version (37-650B), and now, this phono combo (37-650?). These must be all of the variations on that model, no?

The grille cloth appears to be a tad frowsy. I had only a quick look at it as we loaded it in the car. No sweat, 'cause I have a supply of new herringbone cloth from John Okolowicz.

The 37-650 is very familiar to me. My father bought one new for Christmas, 1936. I helped uncrate it, and in later years, maintained it for the family. Since Phono combinations are my cup of tea, this job is a welcome addition to my already overflowing collection. The bloomin' thing weighs a ton.

Anyway, this is the first console I've bought in some time, and it was a nice surprise to find it. The price was surprisingly low, so that just sweetened the deal.

[Ron Ramirez]

Hi Doug

Congratulations on your acquisition!

I've only seen one 37-650PX combination, and that was at the only AWA-Rochester meet I have attended which was several years ago. Someone had one in the flea market, and invited me to take pictures of it. It is now shown in my site's Gallery.

http://www.philcoradio.com/gallery/1937a.htm#au

You never know what you might find at a swap meet, eh? I found a 78 rpm changer at the last meet I attended (IHRS-Greenfield) which fits in my Magnavox Regency Symphony. It's not the correct changer, but looks period correct; it looks a lot better than the four-speed V-M changer that someone stuck in there. This changer is an RCA-Seeburg; the original was a Webster Chicago 56. I also brought home a few radios; two 40-130 sets and a Tropic 3214 portable that looks rough but works.

[Doug Houston]

Ron: You lucky fella having a Regency Symphony. Originally, the changer was a Webster-Chicago 56 . After summer 1948, when Columbia announced their microgroove records, the Maggies began to be shipped with the new W-C 256 changer. I have one in my Maggie Windsor.

I think that there's a spare W-C 256 changer laying around here somewhere. If you'd want it' I'll send it to you.

My next door neighbor bought a Regency-Symphony in 1947. It was only a short time before the Columbia LP discs came along, so he bought a W-C 256 changer for the set. I helped him install it. The 256 went right in place of the 56.

Those changers would usually take a GE VR pickup cartridge in place of the crystal, which would be dead by now. A GE preamp can usually be found to be mounted in the cabinet. A simpler solution would be a E-V Powerpoint flipover, or possibly a Ronette turnover, if you use the 2 speed changer.

Is the receiver chassis in yours the one with the FM band on it, or do you have the optional FM tuner? The Regency-Symphonies came both ways.

Do you know that the manufacture date is rubber stamped on the chassis, both receiver and amplifier, in those Maggie sets? It's a 6 digit number, something like 470914....something like that. This number would mean: 1947 September 14. I could have the digits mixed up, but you could easily sort out the meaning when you read them. If yours was made after around mid-1948, it would have had the Webster 256 in it from the factory.

Lemme know.

[Ron Ramirez]

Doug

Regarding the W-C 256: Yes, thank you! I will send you a separate email on this subject.

The very first radio I ever acquired was the chassis and speakers of a Magnavox CR-181. This was back in 1974 when I was 14, and had at that time only begun to be aware of the vintage radio hobby through Jim Fred's articles in Elementary Electronics magazine.

Last year I stumbled across a Magnavox Belvedere. At least I thought it was a Belvedere. It did not have a CR-181 inside, but a newer chassis. I passed even though it was only 20 bucks. My wife Debbie, who was my fiancee at the time, wanted me to get it. So we went back later, and of course it was gone. I had passed on it because I didn't think we had the room for it, not because of the price.

Since then I have seen someone's Magnavox on YouTube, which has a CR-154 chassis (which looks like a CR-181 to me) in a cabinet similar to the Regency Symphony. It has an instruction manual with it, and the manual refers to it as a Belvedere. This cabinet looks nothing like what I thought a Belvedere looked like. I had seen a photo in Billboard magazine many years ago of what they called a "Belvedere." Now I'm curious as to whether that was a Belvedere or not.

Here's the YouTube video, where the guy shows the owner's manual:

[Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HX-PdYn1Vw8]

The changer in this set looks like a Webster 56.

EDIT: I now know that the Magnavox cabinet shown in the YouTube video linked above is not a Belvedere.

A short time back, after I had recovered from my surgery, I found this Regency Symphony on Craigslist in Indianapolis. It cost me $30 plus gasoline.

Mine has the CR-188A chassis, AM/SW, no FM. It has a space in the cabinet under the main tuner for the optional FM tuner, but does not have the FM tuner. I would be interested in finding one of these tuners. It has a separate AMP-101 amplifier, using four 6V6GT tubes and two 5Y3GT rectifiers. It has two 12 inch speakers.

I will look for the manufacture dates and post these later.

The girl who sold it to me had it playing when we arrived to pick it up. She started showing me the breaks in the AC cord...with the cord still plugged in! I quickly unplugged it before anything happened.

So anyway, my acquisition of this Magnavox is a reminder of that first radio which started me in this hobby, 36 years ago.

[Ron Ramirez]

I'm starting a new thread on the Magnavox Regency Symphony in the Other Radios (Non-Philco) section, with photos. Please join me there for more discussion on the Magnavox.

http://www.philcoradio.com/phorum/showth...p?tid=2617