Thread Rating:
  • 0 Vote(s) - 0 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

Canadian Philco 334
#1

I finished this one awhile ago. Has a 44 chassis/speaker in it. Yes, I know. Knobs should be black rosette.....

http://s1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa37...lco%20334/
#2

Weird, it has a cabinet almost identicle to a Canadian Philco model 3118, but with the model number it should have a model 34 style chassis, the extra 3 just means it's a Canadian made set.
Regards
Arran
#3

I got the cabinet without a chassis. The 44 chassis was one that I installed myself. The only other one's I have seen in this style are 3118s.
#4

TA Forbes Wrote:I got the cabinet without a chassis. The 44 chassis was one that I installed myself. The only other one's I have seen in this style are 3118s.

Did it have that escutcheon on it or did the Canadian model use the more modern escutcheon?
Regards
Arran
#5

It escutchion came with the cabinet. It is black vice the brown ones commonly found on the US models. According to Ron it should have black rosette knobs on it, but I do not have any of them. An original tag that was included with the cabinet identified it as a model 334.

I have only one other Canadian set- a Grimes 465 Serenader. Excellent player for a 6 tube set. Also has a very sturdy cabinet.
#6

TA Forbes Wrote:It escutchion came with the cabinet. It is black vice the brown ones commonly found on the US models. According to Ron it should have black rosette knobs on it, but I do not have any of them. An original tag that was included with the cabinet identified it as a model 334.

I have only one other Canadian set- a Grimes 465 Serenader. Excellent player for a 6 tube set. Also has a very sturdy cabinet.

I'm not sure what they would have used on a Canadian Philco 334 for knobs, what they did in Toronto didn't always jive with what they did in Philidelphia for knobs and escutcheons but maybe Ron has an ad showing what they were supposed to use.
Do you have a picture of your Serenader? If it's the set I think it is I have one myself or one similar, mine has a tuned RF amplifier stage so it should perform rather well once overhauled.
Regards
Arran
#7

[Image: http://i1194.photobucket.com/albums/aa37...011012.jpg]

If I did this right, then this should be a pic of the Grimes. It is a BC/SW radio with a large SW band covers from 49M to 18M bands, but instead of MHz also listed, the SW portion of the dial is from 0 (vic 18M) to 100 (vic 49M).

Tubes are: 2-6D6, 6A7, 6B7, 42, 80. I got my schematic from Dave Cantelon of JustRadios.com, couldn't find one anywhere else.
#8

Most of the Dominion Electrohome/Grimes schematics are in the Radio College of Canada manuals but at the time that was made it would have been listed under Serenader or Phonola. It's a similar but different set from mine, mine has a round dial and a different cabinet, but the same tube lineup. I bought it at a flea market years ago but it was missing the original speaker, someone had fitted a PM speaker in it with a filter choke. Grimes-Phonola/Electrohome used to make a lot of private label sets, Serenader was a brand sold by the Robert Simpson Co. department store and mail order catalog chain. Viking radios were sold by the T.Eaton Co, Arcadia sets were sold by McLeods Hardware. Often they would use the same chassis in a Serenader, a Viking, an Arcadia and they would also market sets throught their own dealer network under the Phonola name.
Regards
Arran
Regards
Arran
#9

Thank you for the information about the Grimes line of radios. Mine is a Serenader. Interesting that they built models for sale by different retail stores like Colonial did for Sears, etc......

On the schematic the Phenola, Serenader, Viking, Minerva, and Arcadia brand names are listed. Now it makes more sense.
#10

TA Forbes Wrote:Thank you for the information about the Grimes line of radios. Mine is a Serenader. Interesting that they built models for sale by different retail stores like Colonial did for Sears, etc......

On the schematic the Phenola, Serenader, Viking, Minerva, and Arcadia brand names are listed. Now it makes more sense.

I forgot about the Minerva brand (not to be confused with the American metal cabinet troop radios), I've only seen one of those from maybe 1940. What I haven't figured out is who sold the Minerva line of sets, I do know that they date back to the late 1920s but still haven't found out what dealer network they had. There were a few others names that Grimes-Phonola/Electrohome manufactured, Dictator and Baycrest were sold by the Hudson's Bay Company, and there was another called "Lindsey-Airline" which had no connection to Monty Ward. After the war Dominion Electrohome dropped the Phonola brand name from their products and simply called them "Electrohome". These were all manufactured in the Kitchener area of Ontario.
A lot of Americans can't fathom that Canada did have it's own home grown radio industry and didn't simply import US made sets. However because the market had different tastes even the Canadian divisions of American manufacturers like RCA, G.E and even Philco designed and manufactured a lot of Canada only models or models like your Philco 334 that used the same chassis in a different styled cabinet. I suspect that a lot of the parts supplied to the British Philco company may have been supplied by the factory in Toronto due to the favorable trading relationship Canada had with Britain at the time.
Regards
Arran
#11

Arran Wrote:......... Canada did have it's own home grown radio industry and didn't simply import US made sets. However because the market had different tastes even the Canadian divisions of American manufacturers like RCA, G.E and even Philco designed and manufactured a lot of Canada only models...........
One of the things I enjoy about the Internet is seeing a lot of the Canadian radios that don't show up around here. Yeah, the Addison Catlin sets show up a lot, but there are a lot of Canadian radios that don't, and many of those are really cool. Three that come immediately to mind is a round top (cathedral shape) Templetone consolette and the Canadian Westinghouse radio that has popped up on the television show Two and 1/2 Men. The third is the beautiful Rogers that member Dan Walker recently restored.

John KK4ZLF
Lexington, KY
"illegitimis non carborundum"
#12

Add to that the nice DeForest Crosleys that periodically show up. I have not seen any of that brand that I do not like. But I have not seen very many of them.

That is an interesting point about the UK Philcos having many of their components from Philco Canada. If I am not mistaken, wasn't some of Canada on 220V service in the past? And I wonder if Canada sourced the UK with the wood cabinets used by some of the UK Philcos? Wood products and woodworking would have been much cheaper in Canada.

I have not been in Canada for at least 20 years, and that was a day visit with my Georgia-native ex wife who had never been there. We made a dash across the border from our camp in North NY to Quebec, which reminded me after we were there for a couple of hours why I preferred any other Province in Canada to Quebec. No offense to Arran, but I bet he knows what I am talking about.

Canada, at least back in the 70s and before when I regularly went there on holliday, was a wonderful combination of the UK and it's own brand of North American, or should I say, "colonial" life. Yes, and France if one ventured into Quebec....

Absolutely agree that Canada has it's own, well, everything. Many here in the States imagine Canada to be somthing akin to a 51st state, and they couldn't be more wrong!
Canada is it's own country and well worth visiting. You don't even need to learn another language. Well, unless you go to (ahem) Quebec.
#13

Well, the USA model 34 produced during the 1935 season, at least during the first half of the season, used black rosette knobs. I do not know about the Canadian 334, perhaps it did also, perhaps not.

Now your 334B is a set I would like to have, it's really cool.

I'm pretty sure Perivale (UK Philco) built their own cabinets once they became established in the UK. I believe Perivale also built cabinets for Philco sets sold in Europe. I once owned a French Philco 2620B tombstone. The chassis had been built in the USA, but the cabinet had a strong Perivale look to it. You can see a picture of it here (scroll down to the first color photo on the left):

http://www.philcoradio.com/world/other.htm

It definitely uses UK Philco grille cloth, as some Philco models sold in the UK use the same cloth pattern.

--
Ron Ramirez
Ferdinand IN
#14

Thank you! The cabinet was pretty rough when I got it, I referred to the site for the 3118 resto for color, but from what I could tell the two stripes on the bottom of my 334 were separately dark, not like the 3118.
#15

TA Forbes Wrote:Add to that the nice DeForest Crosleys that periodically show up. I have not seen any of that brand that I do not like. But I have not seen very many of them.

That is an interesting point about the UK Philcos having many of their components from Philco Canada. If I am not mistaken, wasn't some of Canada on 220V service in the past? And I wonder if Canada sourced the UK with the wood cabinets used by some of the UK Philcos? Wood products and woodworking would have been much cheaper in Canada.

I have not been in Canada for at least 20 years, and that was a day visit with my Georgia-native ex wife who had never been there. We made a dash across the border from our camp in North NY to Quebec, which reminded me after we were there for a couple of hours why I preferred any other Province in Canada to Quebec. No offense to Arran, but I bet he knows what I am talking about.

Canada, at least back in the 70s and before when I regularly went there on holliday, was a wonderful combination of the UK and it's own brand of North American, or should I say, "colonial" life. Yes, and France if one ventured into Quebec....

Absolutely agree that Canada has it's own, well, everything. Many here in the States imagine Canada to be somthing akin to a 51st state, and they couldn't be more wrong!
Canada is it's own country and well worth visiting. You don't even need to learn another language. Well, unless you go to (ahem) Quebec.


As far as I know there was never were any 220v or 240V AC power sytems in Canada, some of the earlier installations were DC but it was still 110 or 120 volt. There were sections of the country, particularly Southern Ontario, that had 25 cycle power at 115 volts, other areas were always 115-120 volt at 60 cycle like Quebec. Where I am they originally had 25 cycle power but switched over to 60 cycle around 1957 or so, the original power plant was installed by a mining company.
However at one time, prior to the first World War, in some provinces they drove on the right hand side of the road and others on the left hand side of the road. The cars they made at the time were all right hand drive like the British until they decided that it would be best if everyone drove on the right hand side in every province. I guess in the horse and buggy days it didn't matter but once cars came about it suddenly became feasble to drive from one province to another.
I sort of know what you mean about Quebec, from the 1970s till maybe the early 90s there was a lot of hostility directed towards the English particularly in areas outside of Montreal. I can't really say anymore without getting too political but there were a lot of kooky ideas that became mainstream at that time particularly among the younger generations in Quebec at that time. Fortunately a lot of that has fallen out of favor in recent times as people realize how kooky these ideas were and how much they have cost them economically.
Regards
Arran




Users browsing this thread: 1 Guest(s)