Last May while in Kutztown I scored another rare radio that looked suspiciously like a Philco. Since I knew that Philco bought Simplex in the late 30's I decided to buy it. (the fact it was only $10 helped) I was to find out later that this little guy was a true missing link. I decided to dig it out of my "awaiting attention area" to do some research for an upcoming presentation on clone radios for my radio club (Delaware Valley Historic Radio Club) near Philly. Of course Ron's site answered all my questions but it still left a somewhat rhetorical question, "Was the TH-1 a Simplex designed set. I present exhibit "A", a radio that is the exact match to a TH-1 with a Simplex dial.
I don't think it was exactly a mystery that the first household Transitone set was a Simplex designed and built radio, Ron's book explains this, if the dial didn't tell the story the chassis and circuit used would have, Philco did not have any other model in their lineup that had a TRF circuit at that point in time. If you take the example of RCA buying out Victor in 1928, and then allowing the Microsynchronous sets to go into production for 1929-30 then it makes perfect sense. Nine times out of ten a manufacturer will engineer, design, and tool up to produce a new product at least six months in advance, in the case of cars the process starts up to five years in advance, mergers can happen at the drop of a hat, maybe a couple of weeks, so it would be very expensive and foolish to cancel a new product on that basis. You may also notice that the Simplex uses a Philco style "V" patterned grillecloth so either they got that from Philco and continued producing and marketing sets under their own name as well as the Transitone name after the merger, or they used the same supplier.
Regards
Arran
Quoting from Ron's description : "Could this be Simplex Radio Company (referring to the S.R.C. on the tag) and was this the TH-1 a Simplex-designed set? This possibility remains under investigation" Reading this we understand that Ron knows the answer but does not have conclusive evidence to back it up. This radio proves his theory. This is also why I added that it was a somewhat rhetorical question but thanx for your concern....
There you go. This is the "smoking gun" I needed to prove my theory, but did not have until now.
Thank you, PhillyPhilco, for your post and the pictures. I'll contact you later about those pictures, but I'm quite busy at present. I'd like to add some more info to my website including your photos.
