[Sam samuelian]

I have a McMurdo Silver Masterpiece V in the Clifton Cabinet. It was beautifully restored by Phil Bartels but after only twenty minutes of playing the speaker voice coil went off center and now it sounds awful. John Goller told me there are ways to re-center a voice coil without reconing. Of course I want to try that and will have Chuck take the Super Giant speaker to his guy to try. If he can't do it, I want it returned untouched. Why? Just saw one that buzzes sell on ebay for 6,200 while one reconed brought only 1,500.00. The rest of the radio was parted out and UNRESTORED it brought 10,500.00 which does not include a chrome radio cover. I would gladly sell my V for that price and regretfully part it out to get that kind of money, I would only lose 1,500.00 since I paid 13K for it. BUT what I don't know--and what I hope some of you can give me advice on--is the difference in value and desirability between a V and VI. Mine is also in a refinished Clifton cabinet like the one on ebay.

[Ron Ramirez]

Sam

I have a Masterpiece VI with a Clifton cabinet. I wrote about it in this thread when I acquired it just over three years ago.

Unfortunately, as you probably know, far too many Masterpiece V and VI sets have had their Jensen Super-Giant 18 inch speakers pulled to sell to the "audiophools" in Asia who are more than willing to shell out big buck$$$$$ for these speakers.

My MP VI was missing its original speaker.

I haven't looked lately, but when I was considering biting the bullet and going for a Masterpiece V or VI, I saw a few with a cabinet - but without the speaker - sell in the $2000 to $2500 range. Three years ago, the speakers were selling in the $5000 to $8000 range.

I don't think there is any difference in value between a V and a VI. The "value" in these sets is, again, in the speaker.

Now, an exception could be made for the very late version MP VI sets, which seem to be more of a cross between a true Masterpiece and the lesser model 15-17. My friend Bruce (y2kbruce) has one of the late version MP VI sets. His research indicates that it may have been intended to be a Masterpiece VII prototype since McMurdo Silver, Inc. went belly up in 1938 before a Masterpiece VII could be put on the market. I would imagine that a set like Bruce's would have to have a higher value than the regular MP VI.

My MP VI now has an 18 inch Jensen theater speaker, with many thanks to someone whom I consider to be a a good friend, an extremely knowledgeable collector, and a Great American. It looks nearly identical to the Super-Giant; the only differences are the two screw terminal boards on the pedestal, the different sticker in back, and the lack of an audio output transformer built into the pedestal.

Radios have come and gone in my collection, but my MP VI will never be sold, nor will its speaker, as long as I'm around.

[palegreenthumb]

I did some research on Bruce's Masterpiece VI, because one like it crossed eBay about 1.5 years ago.  In a complicated transaction, I ended up with the two chassis and a repro cabinet, plus Ron's modern speaker that he put together for his MPVI before he got his big Jensen.

Only 4 of them have been found, plus maybe a 5th that I'm still trying to track down.  Mine and Bruce's have serial numbers only 33 apart, at a time when I estimate Hallicrafters was turning out 100-125 radios a day across all models; these two radios were likely sitting side-by-side on the McMurdo assembly line!

The only ad that's been found for them ran in Radio News in November, 1938, *after* McMurdo Silver closed down.  They were advertised as "The new 1939 Masterpiece VI."  So not a VII prototype, but an actual production radio of which very few were produced.  I wrote up what I know about them here:  http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/mcmurdo_mas...vi_20.html

As far as prices go, the market for the speakers seems strong, but the prices on the receivers seems to be dropping a bit.  I doubt there would be much realized difference between a complete V, VI, or VI-20.  I think you'd have to be a recognized McMurdo Silver collector with broad experience with all their models, and really sing the praises of the VI-20, to make it seem more worthy than the VI and pull a higher price.

Oh, another thing to note:  When McMurdo Silver switched to the single choke amp, which was still during the production of the 1937/38 MPVI, they seem to have also switched to double-connector cables.  So the early MPVI receiver and amp have a cable hardwired to each chassis.  But later chassis have no hard-wired cables.  In the eBay auctions I've seen for these components, the cables are missing.  And it's likely the L1 choke would be sold with the speaker, not removed and sold with the amp, as it should be.  So that whole mish-mash of mixed and missing components should definitely be a detriment to prices for anyone bidding on pieces, if they know what they're buying.

[Ron Ramirez]

My MP VI (21 toobs) has a cable which is hard wired to the tuner chassis, but with a plug on the end which mates with a socket (original) on the amp/power supply chassis.

Palegreenthumb, I had forgotten that your MP VI is like Bruce's set. You must send me the link to the video showing your set playing again - I was so pleased that the modern speaker setup I put together worked out so well for you.

[Arran]

My MP VI (21 toobs) has a cable which is hard wired to the tuner chassis, but with a plug on the end which mates with a socket (original) on the amp/power supply chassis.

Palegreenthumb, I had forgotten that your MP VI is like Bruce's set. You must send me the link to the video showing your set playing again - I was so pleased that the modern speaker setup I put together worked out so well for you.

 I'm not the least bit surprised that a Masterpiece VI would sound good with a modern P.M dynamic, whilst many electrodynamic speakers sound good they all have one thing in common, a low level, low frequency hum. In spite of what the audiophools believe in this more recent craze there were good reasons for G.E developing alnico 5 magnets and why P.M dynamics took off in popularity after the war, and it was not because they were cheaper. If you look at most British and European radios, once powerful artificial magnet materials became available they dumped electrodymic speakers wherever they could, and nobody is going to say that British made loudspeakers sound bad.
Regards
Arran

[palegreenthumb]

Ron, the video is here:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ncwh7bz19x88oz...t.m4v?dl=0

This radio was completely recapped a long time ago ('50s or '60s) and it's due again (big project), so I haven't been using it.  However, the seller told me it was working on his bench, so I just had to try it when I got it!

There just happened to be a good song by Bette Midler on when I started recording.  

[Ron Ramirez]

Thank you for posting the link again for me!