The PHILCO Phorum
Unknown (To Me, At Least) Philco - Printable Version

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Unknown (To Me, At Least) Philco - On Your AM Dial - 02-03-2015

Hello -

I'm not a collector of radios per se, but picked this Philco up quite a few years back.  It's been in storage since then, but I got around to bringing it out just this past week. The trouble is (unless I'm simply missing it) I don't see this exact configuration in the website's photo gallery, and if I'm reading the information available correctly, it probably ought to have a tube cover that'd bear the model number (and I'd ask if in fact that's missing, to what degree it impacts its collectibility). I'm thinking it dates to the period of roughly 1928-31.  I really liked the delicate clamshell-like motif of the speaker opening (at the time I resided in Pismo Beach, California).  Its approximate dimensions are 40½" high X 27½" wide X 14½" deep.

My intention is to do minimal clean-up/restoration and to finally use it as decor, even though the "clam" connection no longer applies.

If anyone can identify/date this unit, I'd apppreciate it.  I was also wondering about how large the production run was for this model.

RE: Unknown (To Me, At Least) Philco - KCMike - 02-03-2015

Welcome to phorum. Looks like according to photo gallery. 1929 a model 65 or 87.

RE: Unknown (To Me, At Least) Philco - klondike98 - 02-03-2015

Hi AM, welcome to the Phorum!  That's a nice looking set.  I believe its a Lowboy cabinet introduced in June of 1929 with chassis models of 65 & 87 or Lowboy cabinet introduced in the Fall of 1929 with a 40, 76, 87 or 95 chassis.  As to which chassis is in the cabinet I'll defer to some of the folks more familiar with them but I think they will need to know the tube layout to make an ID.

RE: Unknown (To Me, At Least) Philco - Ron Ramirez - 02-03-2015

It appears to be a Model 87:

http://www.philcoradio.com/gallery/1929b.htm#c

It looks like this one is missing the two 45 tubes.

RE: Unknown (To Me, At Least) Philco - On Your AM Dial - 02-03-2015

Thank you, Ron, it was right there, don't know how I overlooked it.

When I got it home, there were two tubes that evidently fell out in transit, I'll have to look for where they go and reinstall them.

Very high production figure. But I'd bet quite a few of these suffered breakage of the elaborate wood cutout over the speaker.

RE: Unknown (To Me, At Least) Philco - klondike98 - 02-03-2015

I didn't mention it but you should not try to plug in the radio to play it unless you know its been serviced recently.  See Ron's comments on plugging it in.

RE: Unknown (To Me, At Least) Philco - Arran - 02-04-2015

(02-03-2015, 10:10 PM)On Your AM Dial Wrote:  Thank you, Ron, it was right there, don't know how I overlooked it.

When I got it home, here were two tubes that evidently fell out in transit, I'll have to look for where they go and reinstall them.

Very high production figure.  But I'd bet quite a few of these suffered breakage of the elaborate wood cutout over the speaker.

Many have broken speaker grilles but it's not really a big deal to reproduce grilles for these sets, and they are easy to remove and replace, so it does really make an example with the grill completely intact that much more desirable then one that doesn't.  I'm not 100% sure but I think that someone may be reproducing the grille sections as well. What mainly matters is what chassis was used, the model 95 was the top end chassis, the 65 the bottom (I think). Some of the later production models have a tapestry grille cloth in place of the fretwork, then for 1930 they changed the lowboy cabinet so that it has a pair of turned grille bars rather then a fretwork grille, along with some other changes.
Regards
Arran