The PHILCO Phorum
HBC Dictator followed me home... - Printable Version

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HBC Dictator followed me home... - Brad Winder - 11-10-2021

I was visiting my best friend last night after playing hockey...and just before I left to head home, he lifted up a box, and said "You can have whatever is in this box for $140". I laughed and he said it was the Dictator 355 radio he had bought from a lady in British Columbia, and it arrived weeks ago, and he hadn't even opened the box! I had expressed great interest in it when he said he bought it, since I collect Grimes/Dominion Electrohome sets (along with Philcos  Icon_lol  ) and I had never seen this model before! He said it would end up hiding on the back of his storage room, so I took it home. Icon_smile

RE: HBC Dictator followed me home... - Eliot Ness - 11-10-2021

Pretty cool set Brad Icon_thumbup

Dictator is a new one on me, but we don't see many obscure Canadian sets down here.

RE: HBC Dictator followed me home... - mikethedruid - 11-10-2021

Looking at the name, you can tell the set is pre 1939.

RE: HBC Dictator followed me home... - Arran - 11-10-2021

It looks like someone had a go at refinishing the cabinet, it also looks like they took steel wool to the escutcheons. It's definitely a pre 1937 model, not because of the "Dictator" name, but because of the model number. Grimes Phonola/Electrohome went with a model numbering system somewhat similar to Philco or Sparton. I'm not sure when the Hudson's Bay Company discontinued the "Dictator" name but it was after the war, after a time they started calling them "Baycrest".
Regards
Arran

RE: HBC Dictator followed me home... - Brad Winder - 11-12-2021

Yes, the escutcheons will need to be addressed...I think I will polish them, then use gun bluing to give them a bronze look again.

The use of the Dictator name by HBC didn't end with the war, as one might have thought, which is odd. They used the name briefly when the 1946-47 models came out, then switched to Baycrest and Messenger branding for radios. Maybe they realized the folly, or had some kind of public backlash? Or was the term "dictator" not as poorly received back then as it is today?

I've worked on a couple 1946 Dictator sets, and they seem to be a mish-mash of 1941 chassis, with newer "war-time" tubes thrown into the mix. And I was unable to find schematics for either of them. So...were there incomplete cabinets, chassis or whole sets sitting in storage? Or did The Bay have Dominion Electrohome make up sets, using leftover parts in storage? 

As a side note...Studebaker used the name Dictator on their upper line of cars, only to quickly drop the name in 1937, after Hitler tainted the word.

RE: HBC Dictator followed me home... - Arran - 11-23-2021

Well Grimes-Phonola/Electrohome had their own furniture factory, DEILCRAFT, so it's unlikely that they would have had surplus wood cabinets in stock as they could make those to order. With regard to chassis there were a number of C.G.E, and Canadian RCA models that were basically facelifted pre war models in different cabinets, the chassis were basically identical. It's possible that Electrohome, much like the other makers of the time, was trying to work around parts shortages, Philco was notorious for mixing and matching tube styles, and then changing the lineups during different production runs. There was a pent up demand after having suspended civilian radio production in early 1942, much like there was with cars, but tube and component production had not really ramped up enough to fill it. So you see sets with electrodynamic speakers when they could have used P.M dynamics, rubber/gutta percha wire when they could have used vinyl, cloth power cords, and even BED coded "dogbone" resistors in some sets. I think there may have been a large number of molded Bakelite tube sockets available at the time, possibly war surplus, as a number of sets used them even when the pre-war versions used wafer sockets, unfortunately Electrohome seems to have bucked this trend and used the worst wafer sockets I have ever encountered.
Regards
Arran

RE: HBC Dictator followed me home... - radiorich - 11-23-2021

Hello Brad,
nice set !
Arran don't you remember the cheap stereos that Electrohome made later in the 70s and 80s at least someone was using that name

Sincerely Richard