The PHILCO Phorum

I got that brass tag off the panel, and cleaned it up enough to read it.

It is indeed an "Exact Replica of the Ten Millionth Philco" tag.

The inscription is "Built for Calvin Pardee III"

I was able to even find some history about the owner:

Calvin Pardee III, 6 June, 1905- 3 October 1947

His radio, in some form, has far outlasted him.

Some web mentions:

His business building is razed:

http://standardspeaker.com/news/lattimer...-1.1390623

Church record of birth:

http://boards.ancestry.com/localities.no...91/mb.ashx

Thank you, Brenda, for the info.

Amazing. Now I wonder why Philco put a "Ten Millionth Philco" tag on a 38-690?

For those of you who do not know, Philco's 10 millionth radio built was a 38-116XX. To commemorate the occasion, for a limited time Philco produced 38-116 sets with brass tags under the band switch which read:

EXACT REPLICA OF
The Ten Millionth Philco
BUILT ESPECIALLY FOR
(original owner's name)

There was also a brochure issued by Philco about its Ten Millionth model. I have a copy of one around here someplace.

I wonder if Philco got the idea of adding owner's names from McMurdo Silver? I'm not currently aware of any other manufacturer who engraved the names of the original owners on a special tag on their sets.

I got this tag all cleaned and shined up. I had originally thought that a consequent owner had turned the tag upside down so it didn't show Mr. Pardee's name... BUT, when I cleaned up the painted side, engraved on that side is:

Built for
Calvin Pardee III

Perhaps we're looking at an error at the factory, or whatever source the tags came from, and they misprinted or used the wrong side of the tag the first time around?

Pics if you want them.

Yes, pictures, please!

Here you go.

Let's compare that to an original, attached to a 38-116XX:



I was wrong, it does say "Built For" instead of "Built Especially For".

I've seen a few 38-116 sets with the tag, and they all had a rough-looking font used for the owner's name as the example above which reads "MR JOE STRAKA". I've never seen one with the fancy, calligraphy type font as used for Pardee's name.

This wasn't my set - I took the photo when I electronically restored this set for someone several years ago, so I never removed the tag and looked on the back to see if there was any additional engraving.

Oh, and I moved this thread to Philco Home Radios since we aren't discussing an electronic restoration in this thread.