Photobucket has held all my pictures hostage and in effect has crippled my old thread, Obsolete Early Battery sets, so therefore I am starting a new one. I am hoping you will all feel free to contribute. I have gotten a few new items which I can post and will revisit some old ones which may not have been seen by newcomers.

This is possibly the only early 1920's radio from Delaware. They did produce a general catalog along the line of the Wetmore Savage catalogs but this was not in it. I have seen an ad for these pieces with no photo in a 1922 issue of QST. Maker or distributer was Wilmington Electric Supply Co. The interior is sort of a basket case.

Very nice Merrill. Yep, Photobucket pretty much destroyed that wonderful thread about obscure 1920's radios.

Here is an ad from the February, 1922 Radio News magazine listing the amplifier panel. According to a newspaper article about the F. R. Gooding Company the Wilmington Electrical Specialty Company was formed in 1920 by F. R. Gooding and Willard S. Wilson.

The company also operated radio station WHAV in August of 1922. 



I also ran across this interesting snippet about the company in the September 9, 1922 The Music Trades magazine.

My Giblin Model Society Philharmonic Receiver

Supertone Type G. P. L. -4

Len,

The Supertone Type G. P. L. -4 looks a lot like a Browning-Drake. The detector coil with the plate circuit tickler appears familiar.

I had always considered the brown phenolic versions of the B-D "Regenaformer" to be knock-offs. Seems there are part of this brands design. I have a coil, maybe a pair RF/Det and had always wondered what type of tuning condenser was married to the coils...

TNX

Chas

I have always considered this set a home brew that someone built and took great pains in having a front panel made. Have never seen another and could never find any info on the company. Martin-Copland sold a radio kit with very similar coil/condenser combinations which I also have in my collection: This particular kit is pristine with the original waxed paper protecting the coils and string holding the condensers closed.

Len' Thanks for putting those two sets on. Very nice.
Merrill

These are Cleartone units made by New England Engineering Co. in Waterbury Ct.
I have another identical amplifier. The identifications for the post terminals are pressed into the appropriate places on the wood cabinet.
Anyone have any clues if these were advertised and where?
I would guess they were born in 1922-3

I agree how Photobucket destroyed all the great reference threads that took much effort and input to create. Not to go off-topic, but has anyone found a free photo-hosting site similar to Photobucket? I tried a couple and could not figure out how to post individual pics. I want to continue to post informative threads and info here on the Forum once again. Thank you.

Merrill I know you know this radio. Giblin Model C with a built in Timmons Talker speaker.

It looks better than when I had it!

Hi Merrill,
Those Cleartone sets seem to resemble Bristol made sets.
Also in Waterbury CT.

This is a hard to find Fada from 1922 - Model 140-A. I know of only one or two others.
This was Andrea's first or second complete offering. I don't believe even Ralph Muchow had one of these critters.

Well as long as we are bring out our early FADA sets here is another somewhat scarce early Fada 137-A. It is the same set as Merrill's 140-A without the built-in two-stage audio amp. The two-stage amp was sold separately as an accessory as the user could afford it. I will post pictures of mine after I photograph it.
Alan

So far the posts seem to be about the early rarities but what about the last of the battery sets? Like the fiasco from Atwater Kent- the Model 50!

Why was the Atwater Kent Model 50 a fiasco?

a close friend hooked me up with Google Drive photo sharing page.
It's really easy to upload photos, you just drag and drop them right from your
desktop. Here's a link to one of my photo files there;
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... ENRU0tCNGc

.

Re: my "fiaso" comment on the AK50- It was a grossly over-engineered and expensive battery set introduced when the cheaper and equally as well or better performing AC sets were rapidly taking over. The bulk of the AK50's were recalled by AK and destroyed as I understand. It would have been a very difficult radio to market in that period of technology. Only a few of those that customers had already received remain. I'm sure others may chime in with more info.

Just to comment that I have had three AK 50's over 50 years but never liked any well enough to keep.

Not sure if this fits the category as I am not sure of its rarity, but I thought I would ad my Western Coil and Electric WC 15 Jr Radiodyne.

I have a couple of others I might add, but again, I'm not sure they really fit the category. They are a Ware Music Master (4 Tube) and a Fried Eisemann NR9.

Russ