Startling Revelation on Stromberg 400H!
 

Upon completion of a Stromberg-Carlson 400H restoration I made an astounding observation which will shake the world of antique radio to its very core.

The 400H has an art deco cabinet, but most versions have art nouveau knobs and dial trim. Here are some web photos of the dial trim:

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/phot...eat=directlink

Here's the shocking news: The dial trim in each of these photos is mounted upside-down! I mounted it this way, but it wouldn't lay flat until the screws were tightened, and there was a small light leak at the top of the trim. When the trim is rotated 180 degrees...

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/phot...eat=directlink

...it lays flat, the screws line up perfectly with the cabinet holes, and the light leak is covered.

Anyway, I had a great time restoring this radio and I'm pleased with the results. If interested, here are some before/after photos (I neglected to take any "before" photos of the cabinet):

https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/phot...eat=directlink
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/phot...eat=directlink
https://picasaweb.google.com/lh/phot...eat=directlink

- Winky

Restore
 

Wow.. That's NICE!

Great Job Winky...:banana:

Buzz:music:

I find it interesting that Stromberg-Carlson decided to calibrate the dial on this set in megahertz, rather than kilohertz (mc and kc, of course, when the radio was new). This is the first radio I have ever seen with the AM dial calibrated this way, and frankly, I was amazed. At first I thought this was a shortwave-only set, without AM broadcast coverage.

BTW, I've been wondering who actually built the radio chassis for Stromberg-Carlson. Was SC an independent company, building all its own sets, or were the chassis made by RCA, Zenith, Admiral, et al.? I seem to remember recently reading somewhere (maybe in these forums) that SC's radios were made by Admiral and sold under the SC name. The radio being discussed here looks very much like one of Admiral's table models from the late 1930s.

Don't know the history of Stromberg-Carlson except that they manufactured telephone equipment. This set is sitting on top of a 1931 Airline (by Wells-Garnder), and the Airline dial is numbered 55 through 160. I guess that part of the unique charm of vintage radios is that they preceded modern conventions.
-Winky

Stromberg built most of their radios and other equipment in Rochester NY. I don't know about TVs - though the color sets were RCA.

I Stand Corrected
 

In 2011 I reported that all of the Stromberg-Carlson 400H pictures had the dial escutcheon mounted upside down. I was restoring my third 400H recently and came across these pictures in old ads:

https://c8.staticflickr.com/1/767/32...3a6edfc3_z.jpg

The bottom photo shows the escutcheon usually found on the 400H, and it's mounted the opposite of how I thought it should be.

I stand corrected.

I clicked on the links to the pictures of your SC radio, but kept getting a 404-Not Found error. This happened on every link you posted. I don't know if the image hosting site is down or just what the trouble is. :scratch2:

The links were posted in 2011, and Picasa got shut down about a year ago.

I post everything on Flickr now. I should mention the demise of Picasa when I pull up older threads.