Quote:
Originally Posted by DavGoodlin
After reading through this thread, I was reminded of what I scrapped out in the early years  for the benefit of keeping in good standing with my folks. Tom is right on about this. I confirmed it only yesterday after picking up three antique radios CL from a 19 year-old with a misunderstanding mom. {insert VK thread}
Matter Of Fact - I see two Philco 42-380 radios on local CL right now that have been there for weeks. I agree that recapping, then buying a repro-bezel, restoring finish etc only to sell it for $150 as a working-but-common set is generally a waste of time for any of us. The speaker and knobs alone are worth $40 if in good shape, since these were used on much rarer, even TOTL Philcos. Most restorers know this and will buy it non-working just for parts.
While most any 30s-40s Philco radio is a decent receiver and sounds great when re-capped, a similar Zenith console  (assuming a 6X5 or 7Y4 rectifier tube has not smoked the power trans) would be a better use of much less restoration effort. These often bring more money than Philco radios.
Your Magnavox consoles will generate interest if you get them recapped and spinning again since record players seem to be regaining popularity and Magnavox still commands respect in the vinyl community. The fact it has tubes versus an Astrosonic adds value for sure. The EV26 cartridge just needs a $9 stylus and good cleaning. If you can get a good idler, that will save $$$ like you say. A fairly new site, http://vintagehifi.net/ bears this out.
Lastly, the Grundig may have a partially open selenium rectifier in the full-wave bridge. It seems very odd to have a hum after all caps are changed but a bad rectifier is overlooked, as is excessive current draw, reducing the electrolytic's smoothing action. |
I definitely will see about getting that Magnavox up and running for sure because it will probably like you said get more attention because of it being a tube powered unit and having an original Collaro made Micromatic changer (which from what I was told were built like tanks and have a very good changer mechanism) I actually have a parts record player coming in from dieseljeep on here so I should be able to use parts from that to get the turntable on my Magnavox up and running.
I was going to try replacing the old Selenium Rectifier in that old Grundig but wasn't sure what to use in place of it (it has four wire leads going to 4 terminals which are marked +,-,~,~) and its kind of a complicated radio to work on as they don't give you much wire lead to work with when replacing things like the power supply caps and the Selenium rectifier.
As for the old philco radio I wish someone would of told me sooner before I would of went ahead and bought the unit (I did have a thread posted about it here previously before this one) but no one spoke up about the radio not being worth my time, otherwise I wouldn't of bought it and just fixed the guy's record player and just passed on the radio.