04-24-2011, 03:02 AM
Doug Houston Wrote:I don't have the data on that Bosch set, but if it's one of the sets with the square, full illuminated dial scale, it should be a pretty nice set, decently designed, and easy to service.
In the early thirties, American Bosch made radios for Westinghouse. RCA had been making them, but around 1932 or so, Westinghouse switched to Bosch. I have a few of the 1936-ish Westinghouse sets, that are glaringly Bosch. I've re-capped a couple of them, and they're nice sets.
There was also a connection between Northern Electric and American Bosch from about 1931-32 up until Bosch went belly up. If you look at Northern Electric sets from 1932 through 1937 they look almost like American Bosch sets in different cabinets, even the chassis are the same. What I don't know is the story behind them, Northern Electric had their own radio plants in Canada, very little in terms of assembled radios were imported during that time, so either Bosch designed the sets and N.E built them under license, or N.E designed the sets and American Bosch built them under license. It's possible that N.E did the engineering work since they were a division of Ma Bell, they were quite capable of it. Perhaps Bosch supplied a few specialized parts, much like Philco in the U.S did for Philco of Canada, but they had to have been built in Canada due to the import restrictions, something worth investigating there.
I recently ran across an American Westinghouse table set that was glaringly built by Stromberg Carlson, I sort of wish that I would have picked it up just because of the chassis inside. It had a 9 tube chassis but the cabinet had all of the appeal of a CIL box, which is surprising for a 1939 model year radio. It's strange that American Westinghouse made little to nothing of their own after 1930 but Canadian Westinghouse designed and built their own unique models from 1936 onward.
Regards
Arran