A unique 1940 Philco portable radio/phono

[decojoe67]

Being a fan of early "airplane-luggage" battery only portables. this 1940 Philco 40-504 was the toughest to find. The few that I've seen have been very soiled and tattered. This one was well cared for and electronically restored. The platter is hand-cranked, but it winds very smoothly. i wonder who "CJS" was?

[Jeffhs]

Originally Posted by decojoe67

Being a fan of early "airplane-luggage" battery only portables. this 1940 Philco 40-504 was the toughest to find. The few that I've seen have been very soiled and tattered. This one was well cared for and electronically restored. The platter is hand-cranked, but it winds very smoothly. i wonder who "CJS" was?

"CJS" may have been the initials of the former owner of this radio.

This Philco radio is the first battery set I have ever seen with a wind-up phono turntable. However, I wonder why the turntable is hand-cranked rather than run by a standard synchronous AC phonograph motor; after all, by 1940, I'm sure hand-cranked phonographs were all but obsolete, unless of course synchronous phono motors were not yet available at that time.

Another alternative would have been to use a battery-operated phono motor, but I'm not sure even those were common (or even existed) when this radio was new. The motor would probably exhaust any battery very quickly after only a few plays, so it probably made more sense to use a hand-cranked turntable. Battery-powered turntables probably didn't exist anyway until perhaps the 1960s, at the earliest; even then, however, the battery may not have lasted very long, depending of course on how much the turntable was used. By the sixties, most phonographs had 4-speed turntables which could run at 16, 45, 33 and 78 RPM, but the 16-rpm speed was bound to become obsolete since its original purpose was for the playback of "talking books"; these did become obsolete when cassette tapes became popular.

[decojoe67]

Originally Posted by Jeffhs

"CJS" may have been the initials of the former owner of this radio.

This Philco radio is the first battery set I have ever seen with a wind-up phono turntable. However, I wonder why the turntable is hand-cranked rather than run by a standard synchronous AC phonograph motor; after all, by 1940, I'm sure hand-cranked phonographs were all but obsolete, unless of course synchronous phono motors were not yet available at that time.

Another alternative would have been to use a battery-operated phono motor, but I'm not sure even those were common (or even existed) when this radio was new. The motor would probably exhaust any battery very quickly after only a few plays, so it probably made more sense to use a hand-cranked turntable. Battery-powered turntables probably didn't exist anyway until perhaps the 1960s, at the earliest; even then, however, the battery may not have lasted very long, depending of course on how much the turntable was used. By the sixties, most phonographs had 4-speed turntables which could run at 16, 45, 33 and 78 RPM, but the 16-rpm speed was bound to become obsolete since its original purpose was for the playback of "talking books"; these did become obsolete when cassette tapes became popular.

Yes, "CJS" was the owners initials. I heard about these many years ago and could never find a good one. The last one I saw was very tattered. The spring-wound platter motor was used to save battery power. It was the only practical option for a battery portable. At least the audio plays though the speaker though instead of acoustical.

[Telecolor 3007]

I thought it was a combination between spring mecanism for speening the disc and electric pick-up.
decojoe67 , man, you do have there the cave of Ali-Baba.

[decojoe67]

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

I thought it was a combination between spring mecanism for speening the disc and electric pick-up.
decojoe67 , man, you do have there the cave of Ali-Baba.

Yes, it s mechanical platter and electric pick-up. If it was an AC set, it would had an electrical motor for the platter. Thank you for your comment. Amongst airplane luggage portables of '39-'40, it's one of the most difficult to find. I've done a little research and see that there was similar type sets by other manufacturers, but I've never seen any for sale. Only one or two of these Philco's. They were likely the best sellers of them all.