Hi,
Just picked up a console radio at a flea market and am trying to identify the chassis. It seems to be from 1929 or 1930, and is a product of the Peck & Hills Furniture Company in Chicago. I thought that it was a cool cabinet, being only 28" high, then I figured out that it was either a highboy or lowboy and someone whacked off the legs. Does anyone know anything about the radios of this company? A good guess on the chassis would probably be Wells-Gardner, but ??? The tube configuration is 26 26 26 26 26 45 45 80 (at least those are the tubes that are in it).
Thanks,
Alan
The Peck & Hills Furniture Company was probably the company that made the cabinet. We'd need to see photos of the chassis and the front of the radio to be sure. Is there a name on the escutcheon?
John KK4ZLF
Lexington, KY
"illegitimis non carborundum"
Thanks for your replies. I'll try to post some pictures this morning. The escutcheon around the dial window is marked "Peck & Hills Radio". Yeah, it would make sense that Peck & Hills made the cabinet and contracted out the chassis. I haven't pulled the chassis yet, maybe there will be some helpful markings when I do. The chassis has a plate on it with "Peck & Hills Furniture" and a serial number and model number.
Well, I found a couple of clues. The Peck & Hills tag on the chassis says "Made Under RCA License". I suppose that this merely means the use of RCA patents. Also an the backside of the chassis is stamped "Made By M. F. F. Co" if I'm reading the stamping correct. Ideally I'd like to find a schematic for the radio before I start messing with it but so far I haven't found a radio with the same tube lineup. The closest I've found is a Philco 87 with 4 #26 and 1 #27 instead of the 5 #26.
That's a cool radio! I'm stumped on the M.F.F., though. Peck & Hills were in Chicago, so I would assume they'd have sourced their electronics from one of the many Chicago factories.
Greg
"We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us."
(This post was last modified: 07-17-2017, 01:16 PM by WallaceRoger.)
Peck and Hills is a furniture company. They also made floor tile and laminate. The company was in business for a short while. Your radio is a Store brand 1930. The tag says model 7096? 1096?. Either way the radio is an amputee.
Thanks for the replies. I kinda like the look of the amputee, but I'm going to have to decide how much I want to put into it. As well as the usual cleaning and re-capping, the cabinet will need work and seven of the eight tubes are pretty much fully dead. Maybe I will be able to find more clues as to the maker of the chassis when I pull it. It would be nice to find a schematic, but I can't even find a radio with this tube lineup.
Before you write off the tubes it would be a good idea to check the voltage of your tube tester under load, some tube testers will not put out enough current to power 1.5 volt or 2.5 volt AC tubes on the 2.5 volt setting, I've had to set my tube tester to 3 volts or more with 2.5 volt tubes, and 2-2.5 volts for #26 tubes, and play with the rhestat, and a volt meter, to get the correct filament voltage at the correct current.One sure way to tell is by the colour of the filaments/heaters, they should be a bright orange colour, not dark orange. Another thing to watch are the solder joints on the filament pins, and on the grid caps or pins (depending on the tubes).
Regards
Arran
(This post was last modified: 07-20-2017, 08:58 PM by Arran.)
Thanks for the tips Arran, yeah if I'm going to keep cost down on this I'd better be sure about those tubes before I toss them. I use a recently calibrated Hickok 533, but I'll still make sure.
It probably wouldn't be a bad idea to post a few pictures of the chassis once you pull it from the cabinet, that may help narrow down who manufactured it if only from the locations of the tube sockets. A lot of private label sets were manufactured by companies like Ozarka, Wells Gardner, Belmont, and a few others, but I would take a guess that the circuit was probably similar to an RCA Radiola 18, at least in the front end.
Regards
Arran
Well here's some photos. It does look a lot like Radiola. The tubes are largely Radiotron. Any ideas whose chassis this is? The eight tube lineup is 26 26 26 26 26 45 45 80.
Alan
Here's what I'm going to go with. The Jesse French Piano Company in Indiana manufactured radios for a few years beginning in November 1928. They had a model 5-093 that has some real similarities to my radio and after cleaning and looking closer at the ID tag mine reads Model 5096. I'm going to guess that Peck & Hills Furniture in Chicago bought their radio chassis from Jesse French.
French's 5-093 tube lineup is nine tubes the same as my eight plus a #27 detector. I'm hoping that the 5-093 schematic will help guide me.
Odd to me, I have 5 #26 amplifier tubes and no #27 like most have.
Amputee or not, it's a cool chassis and the cabinet is really nice. I think I'm going for it. Any comments or advice before I do?
