08-21-2015, 02:18 AM
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.
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.
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