50's Radios

     This is a very broad category of radios since there were so many manufacturers vying for the business.  Several typical categories come to mind.  German radios and smaller portables (AC-DC) are good examples of the radios that were built in the 50's.  urely the German Radios that started showing up in American after WWII and their subsequent conversion from military to consumer endeavors producing terrific radios is a primary 50's example.  The German radios (for the most part) were either made of wood or bakelite and we will show examples of each.  Some of the most common names were Telefunken, Grundig, Emud, Grundig-Majestic (made for US Market), Blaupunkt, Phillips (Norelco in the US) and many others not so well known.  Some of these radios had an art-deco design flavor and others, simply put, just have what we know today as the "50's" look.  The 50's look is hard to define in words but if you are an antique furniture or household items collector, you know what I mean.  Besides showing a nice example of an AC/DC portable radio, we will also show a miniature style radio that became very popular for kitchen use.  Consoles were still made in the 50's, but they were getting larger and most had television receivers built in to them, so in effect, most consoles were the 50's version of today's "home entertainment center".  A 50's example of a television set will also be displayed from our museum and this one still works!  Many of you will remember owning a "portable" 50's TV like this one.  

This is a Grundig 1041 and the case is made of bakelite.  Most of the German radios, however had highly polished wood cases.  Most of the German radios had AM-FM and Short-Wave and all used the super high-fidelity tubes made by the German tube industry and good speakers which combination made them sound supurb.  Some of the radios just had a single full range speakers, others had woofers, midrange and two tweeters so produceld true high-fidelity sound.  Most all of these radios had a "piano" style pushbutton arrangement for changing bands and functions.

     This is the famous Telefunken "Gavotte" radio that looks like it has a plastic case but look again, this is all wood.  This is a very beautiful example of a 50's German table radio.

     This is a Grundig Model 3010C made for the European market.  This is another example of a beautiful looking and sounding 50's German radio.  The case is all wood and retains its original great looks and sounds just terrific.

This is a great example of the miniature Arvin metal cabinet radios made in the late 40's with a 50's look.  This is a highly popular size and there were a multitude of manufacturers who made miniature radios as the miniature tubes were being produced.

This is a great example of a typical AC/DC portable, 5PR series made in 1957.  Motorola was a very popular radio maker both in television and radios in this period and this was but one example of their many stylish AC/DC portable models.

This is pretty typical of a portable B&W TV in the late 50's.  This one is a working model made by RCA.  I can remember that I had a similar model in the early 60's made by General Electric that I used while I was in the Air Force.  

This is a Hallicrafters S28A AM-Shortwave receiver from the early 1950's.  It is just one of an entire series of receivers built by Hallicrafters.  This 70# communication receiver was used by the military and was truly state-of-the-art in its day.  Radio Era restores and sells radios like this.

06/17/00