Old radios

W

Wr4i7h

It Wandered In From the Wastes
As promised, here are some pics from my father's collection.

Excuse the low quality, I don't have a good camera and my hand wasn't steady enough in some shots. The brightness and contrast were adjusted in most shots because we keep this stuff in the garage, where it's fresh, dry and dark most of the time, so as to reduce any aging effects on the exterior.

Some are not from the fifties, but they're part of the collection and I figured they'd be interesting anyway, especially the early transistor-based radios.

The condition of these radios varies greatly... some of the former owners didn't really care for them, others did; some still work, others don't.

Enjoy.

These are kept close to the ceiling, away from curious hands:










This is a very large radio and vinyl player that also serves as a table. It has two sides: one for the radio controls, other for the record player.



This large military radio could be of American or probably British construction. It looks old, but I'm not sure in which decade to place it. It came with a well padded spare tube box that says "caixa de valvulas de reserva do posto hq", meaning "spare tube box for the HQ station", so this was used by the Portuguese military. I don't know if it still works, since we have no idea at what voltage this is supposed to operate. Better not make any guesses.





This nice radio is still turned on from time to time. It has a record player at the top.


Two portable radios:



A portable tape recorder standing on its carrying case. We have the microphone, but it's missing a plaque and the plug, so it's stored away until we get those.


A tube tester. Probably the niftiest device I can show you, it's unfortunately in bad shape.


A tube that came with the tester.


This TV is still turned on occasionally, and it is in perfect condition. It can still tune our crappy national broadcast TV stations.


That's all for now. There are some more in this collection, but I have to mention one in particular that unfortunately I couldn't show you: a stereo, multi-band Grundig radio with equalizer and a nifty bright green phosphor bar that serves as a vu-meter. It really looked like something you could find in fallout, but it's at another house.
 
thanks dude.

if your dad ever cleans them or opens them up (we want more vacuum tubes!), be sure to be there to take pictures with a quality camera and not a cellphone. ;)
 
if your dad ever cleans them or opens them up (we want more vacuum tubes!), be sure to be there to take pictures with a quality camera and not a cellphone. :wink:
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Will do, but I'm not sure when that'll happen.

I'll post this on my blog soon, awesome stuff
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Thanks!
 
SuAside said:
(we want more vacuum tubes!)
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I got these a few weeks ago whilst looking at eBay whilst in a drunken stupor. Not quite sure what I was planning to do with them. Luckily I did get something useful at the same time.
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I just had a quick look, seems to be a few knocking around on eBay.
 
So...it is not only my dad that is a radiot? My dad sadly does not collect old radios, he rather gathers many many in all shapes and sises. Very nice collection of radios.
 
Big T inspired me to take a look on ebay and SHIT those americans have all the fun...

shitloads of cheap metal fallout shelter plaques etc. damn it!
 
Wr4i7h said:
This nice radio is still turned on from time to time. It has a record player at the top.
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We actually have an old radio at my parents house that reminds of this one. I'll have a look and see if I can take some pics of it next time I visit there. I have no idea if it works and what decade it's from but now that this post reminded me of the matter, I'm going to examine it more closely.
 
That one's a Loewe Opta. Check the make of your radio, we could be in for a nice coincidence. :)
 
I have a really old aunt (sister of my grandmother) that has an old Lowe, it has a logo that looks just like the Vault-Tek one.
 
Wow. I should take some pictures... I've got tube kit out the wazoo, a tester the size of a suitcase, and about 200 loose tubes laying around.
 
I've finally taken a pic of the Loewe Opta logo. It was a bit dark, but you can clearly see the shape. The "opta" is a bit curved downwards... is this normal, Briosafreak?

 
Cool radios, wraith.

Although here's a few pointers for your documentary pics to look even better:

- Use better lighting, if possible, take the pictures outside in the daylight on a bright day. Daylight won't distort the radios' original colors, and your shots won't be so blurry. Furthermore, you'll get rid of that butt-ugly digital grain.

- Take frontal pictures of the radios, if possible with a black or homogeneous backdrop so you can see them from a better perspective and on a better background than "the bottom lid of the radio on a ceiling background".

Hope that helps.
 
Wow, that one really reminds me of a radio of my dads, or "piece of furniture" though it still works flawlessly (except for a button that has to be pinned down with a piece of wood for some reason).



It is pretty huge (like a 2-3 person sofa) with it's built in speakers, vinyl player (I think) and room for additional stuff (underneath the radio). It's a Blaupunkt and all "words" on the panel is in swedish.

It is actually standing behind a sofa so it was pretty hard to take decent shots without moving stuff around too much.
 
Thanks for the tips, Wooz. A photographer I am not. :wink: Anyway, some of the radios are quite heavy, so I'll try to get some better lighting on the smaller ones when I get a chance.

monsharen, nice one.
 
I finally managed to take a pic of the old radio at our warehouse. So here it is. I didn't examine it very closely this time, just remembered to take the pic.




The make seems to be "NovoSonic", no idea from what decade is that from. :roll:
 
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