Old FADA radio - Videokarma.org TV - Video

zombie1210 · #1 07-29-2019, 03:28 PM

I picked this up this morning, and while it says Model 370-T on the back, I can find no such model anywhere on the internet.

Any of you have one of these? Is it a 370? or something else with a 370 chassis inside? Its a really nice cabinet. Obviously I'm missing one knob. Do you think it will be hard to find a knob that matches?

Electronic M · #2 07-29-2019, 03:51 PM

That number could be a chassis identifier... If there is no service literature or info for any radios with the same chassis you could have the only documented specimen. Sometimes that means it was a prototype but often it was some model that for some reason either had poor sales or had a very high percentage of the sold sets destroyed before attaining collectable status.

I own and have owned radio and TV models and variants where there is no service literature and or mine is 1 of 1-3 that have been found...

IIRC the collector's guide to antique radios has a passage to the effect of ' there are over 3x as many distinct models reported in service literature as we list... most of which have been lost to time, but some of which we don't report because so few sell that we don't have sufficient data to determine their market value'.

zombie1210 · #3 07-29-2019, 04:20 PM

Prototype would be my guess. It's got a much wider chassis in it than a 465 cabinet is supposed to have in it. After much searching, 465 is an exact match for this cabinet.

I found a knob for it already. Didn't set me back much. Easier than I thought if would be to find.

vortalexfan · #4 07-31-2019, 07:17 PM

I actually have a Fada Model 176 AM and 2 SW Bands radio that someone gave me that when I looked it up I didn't find any other information about it except for a post on the Antique Radio Forum from about 10 Years ago where someone else had the same model radio as mine but they too like me didn't find much information about it online, it wasn't even listed in the Radio Museum Website. So it seems that me and this one other person have the only 2 known left of the Model 176 Fada Radio.

Nice radio by the way.

zombie1210 · #5 07-31-2019, 07:41 PM

This one is a 465 with a 370T chassis. Its the only one like it I have found anywhere on the internet. I'm guessing it was a prototype or one-off.

vortalexfan · #6 07-31-2019, 08:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by zombie1210

This one is a 465 with a 370T chassis. Its the only one like it I have found anywhere on the internet. I'm guessing it was a prototype or one-off.

I wonder if the Model 176 might of been the same way? Although there is service information in Rider's for a Fada Model 176 but the weird thing is is that Rider's was the only service manual that covered the Model 176 Fada, Beitman's which was around in 1941 when the Model 176 was made didn't even cover it, which is weird, and the fact that there's very little information about that model of Fada and the fact that there seems to be only 2 of them known to be left is what makes is even more bizarre, almost like it was maybe a limited run model for one year.

Yours is an oddball as well, which makes me wonder if Fada was into making oddball and limited run radio models...

WISCOJIM · #7 07-31-2019, 09:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vortalexfan

Beitman's which was around in 1941 when the Model 176 was made didn't even cover it, which is weird,

I wouldn't call that weird. Beitmans are the "most often needed" schematics, and if the 176 was a low production model, it wouldn't be needed often at all.

.

old_coot88 · #8 07-31-2019, 11:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by vortalexfan

. Yours is an oddball as well, which makes me wonder if Fada was into making oddball and limited run radio models...

When the first Fada we'd seen came into the shop, one of us irreverent goofballs quipped, "Here is the Fada. Where is da mudda?"

vortalexfan · #9 08-01-2019, 12:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by WISCOJIM

I wouldn't call that weird. Beitmans are the "most often needed" schematics, and if the 176 was a low production model, it wouldn't be needed often at all.

.

OK I give you that one.
But I still think its interesting (probably a better way of saying it) that there isn't much information on Fada Radios in general out there including service information.

The only Fada Radios that seem to have any decent information out there about them are the old Fada "Bullet" radios from the late 1940s and early 1950s and that's only because they seem to have a cult following in the art deco world.
Whereas most of, if not all of the wooden radios Fada made are not as desirable or not as heavily collected by radio collectors or collectors in general and so because of that I think that's why there's so little information out there about the wooden Fada radios.

At least that's my experience anyways.

zombie1210 · #10 08-01-2019, 09:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by old_coot88

When the first Fada we'd seen came into the shop, one of us irreverent goofballs quipped, "Here is the Fada. Where is da mudda?"

At Camp Grenada

bgadow · #11 08-04-2019, 09:21 PM

I have a FADA wooden table radio/phono, early post-war as I recall. A friend of mine bought it at auction years ago; he dug it out and asked if I could fix it. Once I finished it he seems to have lost interest and said I could keep it. Well, I guess that's okay because it's actually a very good performer for an AA5. The phonograph blows me away.