Hi all,
A friend gave me this chairside today. I haven’t been able to find much info on it other than Ron Ramirez’s online description of the 650RX. Thanks Ron!
However Ron’s description says that this model would have fed a separate speaker cabinet. Mine has an internal speaker that’s definitely original. The chassis label reads Model 650.
Can anyone shed any light on this set? It’s a really striking looking radio and I’m glad to have it.
It doesn’t look like it was added, and has the correct grill cloth. The only difference from what I’ve seen before I’d that the outpost transformer and a choke are mounted on a small separate chassis and bolted adjacent to the chassis.
I on the road and won’t be able to post more pix until tomorrow but I definitely will. Dying to learn more about the set.
I'm no Philco expert, but it really looks to me like the speaker, baffle board, grill cloth and output transformer chassis are original to the set. They all fit perfectly and there are no signs that the board was installed long after the cab was made. The Philco "V" (chevron?) cloth is original, and the patina of the baffle board looks identical to the patina of the cabinet wood inside. If it was added to the set, I would guess it was added very, very soon after the cab was made. The output transformer chassis is mounted very cleanly, straight and the lead wires going to and from it are about the perfect length for what they need to do.
So what happened? I can only come up with four possibilities:
1. The speaker was Frankensteined into the cabinet at a later date.
2. This is a not well-known variant of the 650RX model.
3. This was a one-off made at the Philco plant for someone who wanted a combo unit, not a receiver unit and separate speaker cab.
4. Prototype??
Another weird thing are the decals, which Ron correctly pointed out don't look right. However the weird thing is that if they were added at a later date, I don't see how it was done. There is ZERO trace of what would have been the original half-circle decals around the knobs. And the finish on the control panel is definitely original, so I don't think someone went in with laquer remover to strip out the old decals before applying new ones.
Very strange. ANyway, thanks for the help from the experts here. I'd love to get to the bottom of this set, but in the end I'm not too concerned. This set looks great, is in excellent condition and I'm glad to have it. The chassis is untouched; was never worked on.
Thanks all!
One other thing: You may notice that the small bolts holding the speaker in place appear shiny and not original. This is true. The screws were a bit loose from the baffle board, making it difficult to reattach the speaker tightly. So I used the original screws to snug the screws to the board. Then I re-installed the speaker and used four new bolts to secure the speaker to the board.
(This post was last modified: 12-15-2017, 12:16 PM by Diverted.)
Philco didn't start using control labels until the 1937 model year I believe. Yes that must've been confusing for the first few times you used a set. This set is from 1936 so wouldn't have had decals - nothing to remove.
Interesting. So the presence of the "wrong" decals isn't really wrong; someone probably got tired of cranking up the volume when they wanted a little higher tone!
What do you think about the overall construction of the cab? What's your opinion? Frankenstein, or no?
The speaker looks like a Philco to me. Interesting that it's a permanent magnet speaker. Looking around a bit on the site it sounds like that's expected for the 650RX:
Quote:...Got this info from Ron:<P>Model 650RX did NOT use the K-17 speaker. Instead, it used a permanent magnet HR-4 (10-1/2 inch) speaker; output transformer and choke (in lieu of a field coil) were mounted in a small metal box inside the chairside unit; only the HR-4 was mounted in the separate speaker cabinet...
So the speaker may very well be original to the set - but as to whether or not it was originally mounted there I'll leave it to others to decide. It's possible that someone 'optimized' the setup at some point in its long life.
Some more pictures of the wiring harness to the speaker and what the cabinet looks like if you remove the speaker would still be interesting.
Here you go, one of the choke/transformer chassis and one of the baffle board.
I read those links, and one note I found interesting was that in the 650RX models with separate cabinet, the choke/transformer chassis was mounted in the chairside unit, not in the detached speaker. This might be a clue here as it doesn't look like the wiring from choke/transformer chassis to speaker was altered on this set to shorten it. Though it'd be easy enough to cut wires and re-solder, the solder points and connections of the two wires to and from the small chassis seem to be original to me. I don't see any evidence of a re-solder/re-wire here.
Thanks for the interest and help!
Other folks have seen a lot more Philcos than me but I'll throw one more data point out there: By coincidence I've been putting together a scan of the 1936 Philco catalog that I'll post once it's all cleaned up. Here's are the raw scans of the pages pertaining to the 650 based models:
It seems to me that someone removed the speaker from its original cabinet and installed it in the radio cabinet. The only reason Philco used the permanent magnet speaker, with a choke and output transformer mounted on a sub chassis, was to not have high voltage in the connecting cable. If this was an original installation, it definitely would have had a field coil speaker.
C'mon, guys, it is clearly a Phranken-Philco as Steve correctly pointed out.
Nathan asked me to look up the production figures; I did. Production for this model includes the 650RX and the later 655RX, and Philco Furniture History lumps production of both together.
There was a total of 1,500 chairside cabinets and 1,500 matching speaker cabinets made - 1,000 of each by Smith, and 500 of each by Red Lion.
Philco would not have put a speaker that close to the rectifier and output tubes. The PM speaker was removed from a 650RX speaker cabinet and stuck inside the chairside cabinet, as Steve said. The thin openings in the side of the radio cabinet, which were intended for ventilation and not for a speaker, would have cut down on the amont of sound produced by the radio.
Steve also said, and I agree, that Philco used the PM speaker in the separate speaker cabinet to eliminate high voltage wiring running from chairside unit to speaker unit, as a safety factor. I do not know that for a fact; it is merely an educated guess. In 1936, permanent magnet speakers were not as efficient as were electromagnetic speakers. It wasn't until later that magnets improved to the point that field coils were no longer needed to make a quality speaker. Philco did this with the previous (1935) year model's 118RX - it too used a PM speaker in its separate speaker cabinet. The 650 can be considered a direct descendant of the 118, as both use eight tubes and feature SW as well as AM reception. The 650 added LW.
It's not a prototype. It is not a custom one-off radio made at the factory. This is Philco which we are talking about, not E.H. Scott or McMurdo Silver. Philco mass produced low priced radios for the masses; they were not in the business of custom building radios to anyone's personal specifications. If you had the means to purchase a custom built radio...you would have been talking to Scott or Silver, not Philco. Besides, why buy a Chevy when you can afford a Rolls Royce?
The modification may have been done decades ago...but it is definitely a modified radio.
If you disagree...well...no offense intended, but all I can do is to quote a little saying that someone I used to know used fairly frequently (and he always said this with a smile):
"You don't have to agree with me. You have every right to be wrong if you want to be." - Rev. Lowell Mason, RIP
Thanks! As I wrote before, I DO NOT CARE whether it's a Frankenradio, prototype, original unit etc. I love it as is, and I'm looking forward to restoring and hearing it. Ron, hopefully you weren't offended/ticked off by the back and forth; in your last email you sounded a bit exasperated.
That's not necessary; I was just looking for information, people asked for more information and photos, and I provided it. At the end everyone came up with a solution. .Thanks to all the friendly folks who replied! Very happy to have this set.
This set is from 1936 so wouldn't have had decals - nothing to remove.
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