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  #16  
Old 05-19-2004, 11:34 PM
Tim Tress
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Hi, Kamakiri... What you have is a Mercury Mantel Set, otherwise known as a Mercury Jr. It was made in 1931 by the H.M. Kipp company, Ltd. of Toronto, a company which tried radio between 1923 and 1932. There was an article on this company in the November, 1994 AWA Bulletin, which has a picture of your set and the schematic.

I have been active over on the antique radio board, and thought that I would join the group!

Last edited by Tim Tress; 05-21-2004 at 06:45 PM.
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  #17  
Old 05-20-2004, 06:14 AM
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Kamakiri Kamakiri is offline
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Amazing! Thanks so much for helping me to put a name to this face!

Did the article mention anything more about the company? I assume this set is fairly rare......and do you know if since it was made in Toronto, if it was manufactured for 25 cycle current, or did the company export to the US?

Thanks again for posting!
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  #18  
Old 05-20-2004, 05:33 PM
Tim Tress
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Hi again... The writer of the article was Dr. Robert P. Murray, from Winnipeg MB. He didn't mention anything about exports to this country; maybe the sets were sold only in Canada. According to the article, the H. M. Kipp Company was in the bicycle and motorcycle business, and started selling the Mercury Super Ten in 1923. It was designed by Charles A. Lowry, who was an engineering student at the University of Toronto. Lowry left the company in 1927, for a job at De Forest Radio of Canada. He later worked for Stromberg-Carlson (both in the US and Austrailia) and Philco of Canada.

Kipp next manufactured the Mercury Super Power Ten, in 1929-30. The Mercury Jr. was next. Also in 1931, Kipp distributed the Echophone S5 (a US made set) and put their own label on it. At the end of 1931, the company was offering a series of console models, and soliciting dealer franchises. Apparently these were the last radios made under the Mercury name. The author does not say who did the design work after Lowry left the company. It is interesting to note that the Mercury sets which Lowry designed were all superhetrodynes, and the Mercury Jr. was not. The Kipp Company was sued for patent infringement in 1926, so they may have had to stop producing superhets.
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  #19  
Old 05-21-2004, 06:43 AM
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Kamakiri Kamakiri is offline
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So Tim, let me ask your feelings on this. Do you feel on this set that I should have the cabinet professionally restored, or leave it as is?
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  #20  
Old 05-21-2004, 06:21 PM
Tim Tress
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Hi again, Kamakiri.... Restoring the cabinet is a tough call. If it is very bad, you might have no choice but to redo it. (It looks like the veneer is coming off the front panel). I also would assume that this set is fairly rare; the number of them that were made is probably small compared with similar sets from Philco, RCA, and others. So far, we know of three; the writer of the article that I quoted from had one, the one on E-bay is number two, and yours is the third. It would be interesting to find out if any other Canadian or US collectors have one in their collectons.

Last edited by Tim Tress; 05-22-2004 at 12:21 PM.
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