I am having a dilemma, at a local thrift there is one with full legs and stretcher in good condition but the price is $300.00...I imagine it will be there on half off day too. Heres my dilemma, I don't think this radio is worth the price but the poor thing is going to get beat to hell, lose its tubes and knobs. Then the cabinet will get the usually deep scratches and dents. I really really can't see this happen to this radio. So I wonder your guys thoughts? And if they are worth that? I just can't see gorgeous radios destroyed.

I recently did a restoration job on an R32 for a customer, and I've seen them going for $1000 online.

Wow. That looks like it was a high-end unit.

What is that thing that looks like a giant tube on the bottom?
"Field excitation coil"?

http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/rca_victor ... ictor.html

I've read they are good performers, the thing on the bottom shelf is the amplifier. The amplifier uses 2 45 tubes, 1 80 and 1 26. They use to bring good money but now that I look a pair with speakers sold for 500$, so I now know that I couldn't get my money back from parting it out...so I doubt the whole unit is worth more then that.

Well... I have one in a dry garage in the desert in Calif... got at a swap meet kinda place on the Calif coast for $50 about 7 years ago. The tuning mechanism is fascinating to me... I may have that part here. Veneer has come loose in places... didn't know til I found ARF that such things could be fixed. Hope to have it as a retirement project. divad

I picked one up at an estate sale a couple of years ago for $7.00. It was complete with tubes and speakers but the the 30 years it sat in the open barn has taken its toll on the finish. One of the heaviest radios I've ever moved.

$90.00, condition sensitive, stretcher base radios don't bring that much. JMO

It depends on a lot of factors, mainly the condition. I'm one who tries to get radios/phonos as cheaply as possible. I'd offer $225, and see what the seller says. Maybe point out some flaws, most collectors know condition is the most important factor, not "well, it's in good shape for 90."

Boy-I'd like even a fraction that $1000. I have a fairly decent one that one of the ARF members graciously gave me a few years ago. Of course it has sat since and I have not worked on it. Has been moved around a garage, back room and now barn.

Well went and looked at it today again. The cabinet was in great shape with just a little water damage on top, probably from a plant....well today there are 4 nice long scratches across the doors....Its so sad to see it being destroyed because they insist that it is a priceless antique

I have an R34 you wouldn't get for that price. I'm not as familiar with the R32.

I would get it.I've paid 300 for radios that are half the qualiy of that one.

Nick

You are hearing that radio crying out to you to please get it out of that hell hole, but you aren't doing anything about it.
Save it before it's too late! You can always come up with another 300 bucks. It only takes a few years.
I paid in the area of 180 (IIRC) for a RE45 last summer. I've already recovered. I didn't need it, but I had to save it from being gutted and the innards sold to audiophools. But it didn't have doors on the cabinet. I have another 50 wrapped up in a pair of doors. And the rest of the finish and condition is only so-so.
It is WAY heavy!
Mark D.

The Microsychonous Victors are very common sets from that era, I see them in antique stores fairly regularly, apparently over 500,000 were built over three years. The audiophools are not going to gut it, especially at $300, other then the 45 tubes there is nothing of interest to them in that radio. Keep your money in your wallet, $300 is way too much for one of those as a project set.
The big dollars that they used to be fetching was because of a bit of a scam, there were a few unscrupulous sellers misrepresenting the amp chassis and the speaker as being products of Western Electric, mostly to Asian audiophools who think there is something mystical about anything W.E produced. Anyhow our Asian friends must have become wise to the fact that W.E had nothing to do with making the amplifiers or speakers since the market has all but collapsed, they are just part from another antique radio.
Best Regards
Arran

As much as we'd all love to save them $ does come into play. If it's going to be a keeper, if you want it bad enough to pay their price you do. If it's going to be a "flipper" then what you pay, what you have to put in versus what you can actually get will be the deciding factor. If it's brand new on their floor chances are they'll hold out for top dollar. If it's been there several weeks then they may take a reasonable offer. Worst case you walk away.

That is the most plain cabinet on one of those . I think the dial is ugly . 50$ radio

Well stopped back in tonight(yes I am a thrift store junkie)and now there is a giant dent in it from where the clothing rack smacked into it. She said that the radio is worth that, that they have lots of people that come in and buy that stuff. That it will sell and someone will restore it. She doesn't realize that I am the only one that buys them and thats why they always sell. I went through the whole sob story about hows its getting trashed, she said someone will restore it. I need to print out this post and show them I always think its amazing to look at it in this perspective, it has lasted for 75+ years and in one week it gets turned into saw dust.

Let them sit on it from 3 weeks to a month or longer, if it doesn't sell it isn't worth $300. Besides that $300 is an antique store price, and most of those wouldn't change that for one in that rough a shape, thrift store getting $300, she's kidding herself. Jay, you've picked up much nicer and more interesting sets then that for a lot less, it isn't even a top of the line example of a microsynchronous Victor let alone a 1929-30 floor model.
Best Regards
Arran

Arran has it pretty much on the nose

You aren't looking at an R-32, but the more expensive R-52. It's the sane chassis that was used in the R-32, RE-45, and RE-75.

It was the first radio that Victor set out to manufacture. The set was ready for production as RCA was buying Victor Talking Machine Company. RCA wisely put it into production, and it was one of the biggest sellers in 1929 and 1930 seasons. That was because it was an exceptional radio, quality and performance-wise. The tuning system was a remarkably ingenious device, that made a TRF chassis perform like a superhet. I have all four examples of the set, and the phono combination is a killer performer for sound, because of the exceptional power amplifier in the sets.

The power amp actually has too much shmozz for the electro-dynamic speaker that was used with those sets. Too much volume on the radio can send the speaker cone across the street. No problem with the phono, but it has lots of output.

A lot of these have been junked for the power amplifiers. As Arran has already said, they've been sent out on eBay, with the intimation that hey were Western Electric products. The Orientals went nuts over them, especially that they're triode amplifiers, but especially that they were fraudulently represented as Western Electric products. The Asians finally got wise, and the market for the amplifiers dried up. At one point, when Arran and I were talking about the shysters that were fooling the orientals, a guy popped up, who was defending the frauds, selling the amps vehemently. Arran and I agreed that this was one of the perpretators.

The Asians got jostled badly with misleading ads for lots of "Western Electric" items that were not. If you advertised a pile of dog droppings as Western Electric, it might go for thousands of bucks.

Anyway, if you like the set, make those idiot broads an offer like possibly $180, and tell them to quit kicking the thing around. If they'd had all the action on the set that they tell you (and it's all lies), it would have been gone by now. Let's hope that you can get it, and not think you can pay off the mortgage by junking the set.

The veneer work on the doors is the real stuff. Victor's cabinet shop did nice things.

Thats what it is, I didn't think it was a R-32 but I gave up searching and just called it that lol

I thought I remembered the amps going for crazy amount of money few years ago, then I looked and seen the no one wants them. Now I know the story behind the price drop.

Oh yeah I wouldn't gut it, tend to one it would end up in the garage with rest of the generic stuff. As you say, I will let them sit on the set and wait for the price to drop to 75$. There are just so many more nicer sets out there.