The PHILCO Phorum

I found this photo of Joe Dimaggio holding what looks like a 46-350 in a book about the 1949 American League Pennant race between the Yankees and Red Sox. The book was The Summer of '49 by David Halberstam.



For fans or OTR, swing jazz, and baseball here is a link to a really silly but enjoyable song about Joltin' Joe, performed by Les Brown.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q6odQuCxFU

Cool, and the handle isn't broke!

Very new 46-350. Nice.

Those handles had a steel strap sewn between the two pieces of leather to support the weight. No joke. You can feel it with a magnet. It needed it, too. My bathroom scale says the radio with battery weighs 14 1/4 pounds. The battery alone was 5 1/2 pounds.

Back when the Yanks were a force t be reckoned with.

Little known fact: Joe did not like to sign things, grudgingly did balls, and rarely did bats.

When I was in a prolonged stay at the hospital many years ago, one of the Docs there was a major baseball fan. When he found out that I played in the minors 3 yrs between tours in USMC, he came to my room with his collection of cards, balls, and bats. He had a rarer than hens teeth genuine Joe DiMaggio signed bat. He had an amazing collection that was directly responsible for me being moved to a single-patient room in spinal-cord injury rehab because the Doc and I stayed up yapping about baseball until 4AM, keeping my roomate up nearly the entire time.

Couldn't it be a 49-607 given the year of the photo? I have this model and it's strap doesn't seem to have the metal inside.

My 49-607 has the metal strap inside the handle.

Hey John
Tnx for the link enjoyed it!
Terry

From Ron's photo gallery, it looks like the 48-360 and 49-607 have distinct alligator patterns on the cover, while the 46-350 has something like a leather pattern and texture printed on the fabric. I'm not an expert, but the texture looks very much like my 46-350. I have two of them, and they are much the same.

It is possible that Philco eliminated the steel strap at some point as a cost reduction. Maybe that's why yours doesn't have metal inside the handle, Paul. Philco often made mid-year cost reductions. I have two 46-350 cabinets with a couple of substantial differences that were probably mid-year cost-saving measures. Perhaps the same thing happened in the 1949 Philco season.

Wow, great story, Mr. Forbes. Who did you play for in the minors? What position? I often listen to the Bulls on my old radios. I used to like the Mudcats, too, but they don't seem to broadcast anymore. I think you can still hear them on the internet, but I never do.