Can someone please identify this set?

[daro]

I was on instagram yesterday when someone who I follow on there posted a picture of what appears to be a pre 1935 console chassis that has been built into the wall.



Can someone out there please identify the mystery console chassis that has been placed in the wall of this old house.

[Kamakiri]

Philco model 38-7. They came in a table model as well. Could be a 38-4 as well

http://www.philcoradio.com/gallery/1938a.htm

[Electronic M]

I've got a chair-side type console with a chassis like that.

[Captainclock]

I wonder if that radio being built into the wall like that was an early version of the old whole house intercom system with built in radio like what NuTone did for years...

[daro]

My first guess was Philco because of the unusual knob on the tuning dial which is the concentric tuning knob.

[Kamakiri]

Yep, they called it "cone centric" tuning. There are little cones on the inside of the rim that can be set to station presets....push the knob in and it locks on that station.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by daro

My first guess was Philco because of the unusual knob on the tuning dial which is the concentric tuning knob.

I thought, Philco right away.
Was this radio located in Australia, as Philco had a plant there.

[daro]

Nup in the U.S.

Sent from my A1-830 using Tapatalk

[Captainclock]

I wish there was a little more to go by than just the image that you have posted here (like a picture of the house in question that the radio in question was in, or maybe pictures of any built-in loud speakers that may or may not of been present in the house that may of been wired to this radio, because that would confirm whether or not I was right in saying that it might of been part of an early whole house intercom/radio system similar to the old NuTone systems that were installed in homes for years, instead of being just some random radio chassis stuck in a wall for no apparent reason except that it just looked cool and that it really never served any sort of functional purpose except for decoration.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by Captainclock

I wish there was a little more to go by than just the image that you have posted here (like a picture of the house in question that the radio in question was in, or maybe pictures of any built-in loud speakers that may or may not of been present in the house that may of been wired to this radio, because that would confirm whether or not I was right in saying that it might of been part of an early whole house intercom/radio system similar to the old NuTone systems that were installed in homes for years, instead of being just some random radio chassis stuck in a wall for no apparent reason except that it just looked cool and that it really never served any sort of functional purpose except for decoration.

Home intercom systems were rare to non-existant before the 60's. People did like to build radios and TVs into walls, before then though. I had a 40's AA5 chassis (that supposedly originally had a Catlin face) which was designed to be mounted in a wall....It had hinges on the bottom front, and it's original cord was about 4" long. Heck even the Whitehouse had a built in TV for a while.

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

Home intercom systems were rare to non-existant before the 60's. People did like to build radios and TVs into walls, before then though. I had a 40's AA5 chassis (that supposedly originally had a Catlin face) which was designed to be mounted in a wall....It had hinges on the bottom front, and it's original cord was about 4" long. Heck even the Whitehouse had a built in TV for a while.

So then if what you say is true then how would you power such a beast? Certainly they had to have some way of powering this radio up (like an outlet built into the inside of the wall behind where the radio was installed into the wall) and where in the heck did they install the speaker(s)? And also there's the question of ventilation of the radio's tubes and making sure the insulation in the wall didn't catch fire due to excessive heat build up in the wall from the tubes... This is definitely a mystery to me. Also the home intercom system/radio concept isn't completely unheard of back then because I have a friend that lives in a house that was built in the 1940s that had a built-in NuTone home intercom system with a built-in AM Only radio that was in the kitchen of the house and the intercom system was original to the house (it uses miniature tubes like 12BA6, 12BE6, 12AV6, 50C5 and a 35W4 (basically an AA5 hot chassis design) but if course it doesn't work anymore because the breaker for it was either disconnected when the original 100 Amp fuse box was replaced with a 100 amp breaker box or the breaker was wired up for it but was never switched on) although I figure that its more than likely going to have a bad hum to it by now even if it were to be some how enabled again seeing as the filter caps are probably dried out by now seeing as the unit hadn't been used since the previous owners of the house lived in it which was back in the 1980s before my friend and his family moved into the house.

[Electronic M]

It had the speaker right on the front like any other generic AA5....It would seem that there must have been some kind outlet in the wall for it, but I'm not the one who got that chassis out of it's original place of installation so I can't say for sure...

One thing to bear in mind most pre-war homes and some postwar did not use drywall or insulation between rooms. Thin boards would be nailed in, cement slathered over them then plaster....Very sound proof and decent insulation (honestly insulation on inside walls is only useful for sound proofing). On AA5 that could be fit in walls like mine they kept at least 4" clearance above the tubes (as could be seen in the design...There may have been top vents too), on deeper sets like the OP's and TVs the back of the set either stuck out into another room or a walled off dead space...
It is not as easy to start solid wall material on fire with tubes as you think...If it was the average wood cabinet radio or TV would be a fire bomb...I've got an OTL tube amp with north of 300W draw from the TUBE HEATERS ALONE sitting ~2.5" from the ceiling in a closet, and that sucker has been on nearly 12 hour days sometimes...It's never gotten close to causing a fire.

Your friend's set is almost certainly Post WWII (prewar and early post war stuff was usually octal 50L6 12SQ7 12SA7 12SK7 35Z5) That set is probably post 1946, and more likely 50's.

[Captainclock]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

It had the speaker right on the front like any other generic AA5....It would seem that there must have been some kind outlet in the wall for it, but I'm not the one who got that chassis out of it's original place of installation so I can't say for sure...

One thing to bear in mind most pre-war homes and some postwar did not use drywall or insulation between rooms. Thin boards would be nailed in, cement slathered over them then plaster....Very sound proof and decent insulation (honestly insulation on inside walls is only useful for sound proofing). On AA5 that could be fit in walls like mine they kept at least 4" clearance above the tubes (as could be seen in the design...There may have been top vents too), on deeper sets like the OP's and TVs the back of the set either stuck out into another room or a walled off dead space...
It is not as easy to start solid wall material on fire with tubes as you think...If it was the average wood cabinet radio or TV would be a fire bomb...I've got an OTL tube amp with north of 300W draw from the TUBE HEATERS ALONE sitting ~2.5" from the ceiling in a closet, and that sucker has been on nearly 12 hour days sometimes...It's never gotten close to causing a fire.

Your friend's set is almost certainly Post WWII (prewar and early post war stuff was usually octal 50L6 12SQ7 12SA7 12SK7 35Z5) That set is probably post 1946, and more likely 50's.

That makes sense, but either way, I've told my friend that it would be kind of cool to try and see if he could get that old intercom system of his up and running again because I do have several of the tubes that his radio needs if some of them happened to be duds (although the other thing I didn't think of as to why his intercom/radio receiver might not of been working was probably because it has a bad tube in it because of the fact that its a hot chassis set which means that if one of the tubes was bad the unit wouldn't power up because it would be like a set of series strung Christmas lights if one goes out they all go out, so actually his intercom system might be working just fine, it just needs a new tube or two...