The PHILCO Phorum
Flea Market Truetone - Printable Version

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Flea Market Truetone - Jayce - 02-23-2013

Went to the Navarre, Ohio flea market today and found a Truetone model D1075 radio-phonograph console in decent shape. Finally have the radio to complete my 'big three' postwar department store radios. Sears, Montgomery Wards, and Western Auto were the big sellers of department store radios around my area at that time. This looks to have the Detrola built chassis in it. Wasn't wanting another big radio-phono set, but it is hard to find prewar Truetone radios here and when you do, people treat the units with the Detrola chassis like they are gold price-wise.

   

   

RE: Flea Market Truetone - TA Forbes - 02-26-2013

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RE: Flea Market Truetone - Arran - 02-27-2013

It's strange how things go with the radio market, I remember about 20 or more years ago nobody wanted Detrola made sets or any department store make, even Airlines. Why people decided to take to Detrolas I have no idea, there were other independent makes with fancy dials that don't have anywhere near the fanfare, also ones that were better performers and better made. This one may have been more of a bargain because it was a radio-phonograph combo unit and a console. It's probably a good thing that it doesn't have motorized tuning, the Detrolas with motor tuning were notorious for burning up power transformers, I recall reading that they were not well designed in that there was no real protection should the motor or mechanism jamb. Like brand Z I think they were also infamous for using power transformers that were just adequate for handling the number of tubes in the set.
Regards
Arran

RE: Flea Market Truetone - Doug Houston - 03-01-2013

Yeah, Arran, I know what you mean. Denny Smith, who frequents the Antique Radio Forum, had an aunt, who worked at Detrola. He's the proponent of the Detrola interest. Denny tells me that Western Auto sold so many radios,m that Detrola had a separate assembly line in the plant for western Auto Trutone sets!

I've never been a Detrola fan, but there were a few sets that I could have liked. Note that the set here had an RCA Ejector changer, so it must have been a higher level set.

RE: Flea Market Truetone - Arran - 03-01-2013

I think that Dennis and his web page seem to have been responsible for the massive increase in Detrola interest in the past few years. The antique dealer Mark Stein (not to be confused with the author and commentator Mark Styne) attempted to spark a similar interest in Sears Silvertone sets but I don't think it was as successful. In Dennis' case his was more of a historical interest, in Stein's case he was probably trying to pump the market.
Stein was more or less responsible for the mania around Emerson sets with Ingraham cabinets, before that they were viewed as a cheap set with a pretty cabinet. His books are also responsible for the many erroneous claims of other makes like Stewart Warner, Brand Z, Stromberg Carlson, Truetone, Firestone, and even Canadian General Electric models being housed in Ingraham cabinets. The last one is so out to lunch I couldn't believe it, not only was Canadian G.E no where near Ingraham's factory in Bristol Connecticut geographically, it isn't even in the same country.
My guess is that Detrola's deal with Western Auto probably expanded their product distribution immensely over anything their own dealer network could have accomplished. Detrola likely would have stayed as a regional independent make like Remler or Garod without the contract to build Truetone sets for Western Auto. If I'm not mistaken many of the Western Auto dealers on the West coast had sets built for them by Gilfillan under the Western Air Patrol brand, pretty interesting sets.
Regards
Arran

RE: Flea Market Truetone - Jayce - 03-13-2013

The radio portion of my Truetone radio-phono is now up and working! The bad thing was that the voice coil on the original speaker was not good and the cone crumbles from the slightest touch. My friend came up with a novel solution until I can find a proper repacement. Use an 8 inch PM speaker (which just happens to fit where the original went) and bypass the voice coil wires to it while still using the original speaker for the field to keep the radio happy. Not a totally pretty idea, but it works quite well and this radio sounds rather good.

   

I really like the dial on this unit. Because of being under cover, the colors are still quite vivid when the radio is on. Also a good performer that sucks in stations quite well.

RE: Flea Market Truetone - Arran - 03-13-2013

You may be able to rebuild the original speaker, this place here seems to sell some speaker parts, voice coils, cones, etc., whether they would work in your case is another story.

http://matelectronics.com/prestashop/en/41-speaker-accessories

Regards
Arran

RE: Flea Market Truetone - Jayce - 03-13-2013

That is the plan in the future is to have the original speaker redone or maybe find a donor. Right now I can at least use the radio until I have it done.