WHICH 690 IS BEST BET? - Printable Version
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RE: WHICH 690 IS BEST BET? - Sam samuelian - 06-19-2012
Can anyone give me the dimensions of the 37-690. It looks smaller than the 38-690 but you need to allow room for those doors to open and close. Thanks, Sam
RE: WHICH 690 IS BEST BET? - Ron Ramirez - 06-20-2012
Sam - you have a PM waiting for you.
37-690 dimensions:
Height - 43"
Width - 28-1/4"
Depth - 16-5/8"
From Philco Furniture History.
RE: WHICH 690 IS BEST BET? - Sam samuelian - 07-20-2012
"MONEY PIT" UPDATE: I hated even glancing at the Philco 38-690 which was abused as opposed to restored by Alex Kowal who's on ebay. Thanks to looking and asking questions, finally Mike Koste heads up the great Kutztown Radio Meets (I'm booked for Sept. with a dealer's table---gotta sell to keep paying for all I buy!) suggested Lewie Newhard who has had his wonderful wares displayed for about 20 years at Renninger's Kutztown (open every Saturday). Lewie was very sympathetic but didn't want to touch a set botched by another technician. But he gave me the phone number of Chuck A. Chuck came out and after spending a few minutes took the 38-690 away. Good timing since my "musuem quality" 37-690 has now been picked up from Minneapolis by the shippers. I heard back from Chuck, and didn't believe it when he told me the BAD hum was mostly the result of a tube that wasn't shielded. OMG! (Note: A good friend told me that Philco had a kind of "war" going with RCA which resulted in their using shielded glass tubes instead of metal tubes). He went on to say the work was done by a hack and that he would rather start from scratch but since I had SO much sunk into the set already (around $3,300), he would do what was absolutely necessary. He re-did the bakelite blocks, aligned the IF, and worked on the magnetic tuning. He is having the bad tweeter restored. All will be ready in about two weeks.
Ironically, a result of all this "experience" was a jump over to the Scott Forum. I got very interested in Scotts and ended up bidding nearly the same as I had dumped into the 38-690 for a Scott Buckingham Philharmonic with incredibly beautiful chrome. Didn't stop there and went for a lovely and stylish Sparton Triolian with tweeters. Then found four Scotts for sale but have not been able to deal with the seller who has let things drag on and on despite my offer to drive down to see them. So, I found on the same forum a wonderful guy who sold me two Scotts from his collection (he needs space for new sets he is buying for his room, aptly called The Great Scott room!). They are a Scott Acousticraft Philly and a Scott AW12 Tasman. ALL are in transit as I write so soon our home is going to be "invaded" by 10 big consoles including a Radiola Super VIII (RCA's first console offering), an Airline "movie dial", a Zenith chairside, an Atwater Kent Kiel, and the most beautiful (fully restored) console I've ever seen--the stunning Arvin "Rhythm Queen".
What's next-? Well, I'm now talking McMurdo-Silver and am looking for something like a Masterpiece V or VI in a Clifton cabinet with 18 inch speaker. In the meantime, I continue to get "fixes" with a steady flow of cathedral, tombstone, and other wood sets, and a nice supply of bakelite and plastic radios--most of which have been painted in original colors with mirror finishes or painted using a striking array of colors like yellow, turquoise, burgundy, black, silver, etc., etc.
Onward and upward!
PS. Thanks to all who have helped me on this crazy road I've traveled. Especially Ron R.
RE: WHICH 690 IS BEST BET? - PhilcoJohn - 07-20-2012
WOW Sam your a busy guy, and what great consoles your adding to your collection. I am jelous. Good luck with all of them hope you post pictures when you get them for all of us to see!
RE: WHICH 690 IS BEST BET? - Ron Ramirez - 07-20-2012
Sam
Now, don't blame me for your radio obsession!
But seriously...I saw your post on the Scott forum, and I also wrote a brief reply there.
I suspect the guy who was looking to sell the four Scott sets has probably already sold them to someone who made an offer he couldn't refuse, and I doubt that you (or Norman) will ever hear from him again. I may be wrong, I know. So I'm cynical. So pardon me.
On the other hand, if you bought your two Scotts from the person I think you bought them from (no need to mention names), then you bought them from one of the best guys in this hobby.
RE: WHICH 690 IS BEST BET? - Arran - 07-21-2012
Sam;
I would slow down and take a breather from buying for a while. Many new collectors seem to catch "Radio Fever" and buy up nearly everything and anything that comes along, or they start buying stuff that they think other people want them to buy. You should try to specialize in one brand, era, or one type of set otherwise you will end up with a house full of stuff that may become a burden later. This is especially true if you can't restore your own sets. I'm not trying to discourage you but I have bought many a set from collectors that went on a buying spree only to lose interest a few years later, the last guy didn't even know what a tube was and he had almost a dozen sets of various makes, models, and conditions.
Regards
Arran
RE: WHICH 690 IS BEST BET? - Arran - 07-22-2012
Quote:Sam
Now, don't blame me for your radio obsession! Icon_wink
But seriously...I saw your post on the Scott forum, and I also wrote a brief reply there.
I suspect the guy who was looking to sell the four Scott sets has probably already sold them to someone who made an offer he couldn't refuse, and I doubt that you (or Norman) will ever hear from him again. I may be wrong, I know. So I'm cynical. So pardon me. Icon_lol
It depends on what he means by the seller "Dragging His Feet", if the seller didn't respond perhaps he already sold them. But if he did respond saying he still had them, but later sold them, he should stop giving people the run around, tell them they have sold, and remove the posting. Personally I think that there should be a rule on such forums that if you post something for sale, and it sells, you should announce that it's gone and remove the ad, or get a reprimand of some sort. I know of at least one such forum that does that, but not a radio forum, if something is sold it has to be declared as sold, and the thread locked.
Regards
Arran
RE: WHICH 690 IS BEST BET? - Ron Ramirez - 07-22-2012
Arran Wrote:Personally I think that there should be a rule on such forums that if you post something for sale, and it sells, you should announce that it's gone and remove the ad, or get a reprimand of some sort.
While I agree with you, as the owner of this website and Phorum I also have to walk a fine line between enforcing rules and ticking people off. Make someone mad, they go over to the other forum, you never hear from them again. So I just depend on folks to be honest and to post when their item sells. Sale and wanted ads are pulled after 30 days here anyway, I see no need in archiving them forever as they do at ARF. To me, archiving all ads is a big waste of bandwidth and hard drive space. Chances are that Fliminjammer XT-800 35-tube radio posted for sale in 1996 is no longer available.
RE: WHICH 690 IS BEST BET? - TA Forbes - 07-22-2012
I never did get the Fliminjammer 35 tube set to work properly, so I now use it to heat my cabin in the mountains.
RE: WHICH 690 IS BEST BET? - Arran - 07-22-2012
Quote:While I agree with you, as the owner of this website and Phorum I also have to walk a fine line between enforcing rules and ticking people off. Make someone mad, they go over to the other forum, you never hear from them again. So I just depend on folks to be honest and to post when their item sells. Sale and wanted ads are pulled after 30 days here anyway, I see no need in archiving them forever as they do at ARF. To me, archiving all ads is a big waste of bandwidth and hard drive space.
That's not to bad if the ads are pulled after 30 days, but there aren't really that many ads to sort through most of the time. Craigslist has an expiry time too but given the quantity of postings it still becomes annoying. There was a G.E console for sale in my area, the ad was put up on the 19th of June, I asked if it was still for sale and the lady said it was, two days later she said her daughter had had taken it away while she was away that weekend. In any event the ad is still up there, I don't know why because it really isn't that hard to remove them, how lazy can you get? In any event I can't see the point in archiving buy and sell ads, as you say it's a total waste of hard drive space and for what?
Regards
Arran