Unusual Midwest combo, you know where

[Eric H]

Interesting set, looks like a 16" or maybe 19"?

Meriden, Connecticut of course, 3000+ miles away from me, not that I could get it anyway.

http://cgi.ebay.com/Vintage-Midwest-...QQcmdZViewItem

[Phil Nelson]

Sassy. Looks like a bargain in the making for someone with a pickup and two strong friends (uff da!).

I'm not crazy about the fold-down doors, tho'. Wonder how many two-year olds went to bed with a black eye from running into one of those :-(

Phil Nelson
Phil's Old Radios
http://antiqueradio.org/index.html

[Eric H]

I hadn't noticed the fold down doors, that is rather odd.

The plus side is you could use it as a table to eat your TV dinner off of while you watched Lucy, up real close...

[jpdylon]

Never heard of "Midwest" brand before. Who do you suppose made it really?

CRT is most likely a 19AP4. Looks all metal to me

[bgadow]

Midwest was a notable name in radios back in the thirties, famous mostly for high tube count radios sold via mail order. I'm not sure I have ever seen anything post-war from Midwest, and certainly have not seen/heard of a TV. A real oddball, worth saving.

[Phil Nelson]

I have one Midwest radio: http://antiqueradio.org/MidwestDD-18.htm.

According to the Midwest history site, they lasted in business until about 1957, and did produce a few TVs.

http://www.midwestradiomuseum.com/

I believe their heyday was definitely the 1930s.

[Whirled One]

Wow, I didn't know Midwest made TVs either..! I've seen plenty of their big prewar radios, but never seen a Midwest TV. The styling of the radio dial and controls seems rather unusual, and quite different from Midwest's prewar radios at that.

[RetroHacker]

I saw that one too - the fold down doors are definitely unusual, and the chassis layout is a bit strange - the TV and radio share the same chassis! Normally you would expect to find a seperate TV chassis, radio/tuner/audio amp chassis. It's 150 miles away from me, and very tempting. I don't need another big piece of stuff, but it's still really tempting. I'll keep an eye on it...

-Ian

[Sandy G]

Midwest was sort of a "poor man's" E.H. Scott, w/their high tube count sets.IIRC, there was a kerfuffle of sorts in 1936-37, when it was discovered that in some of the radios that had high tube counts, several of the tubes weren't really doing anything at all, except to jack up the price of the radios...

[Whirled One]

Originally Posted by Sandy G

Midwest was sort of a "poor man's" E.H. Scott, w/their high tube count sets.IIRC, there was a kerfuffle of sorts in 1936-37, when it was discovered that in some of the radios that had high tube counts, several of the tubes weren't really doing anything at all, except to jack up the price of the radios...

This sort of thing apparently also happened for a little while just after WWII, but for different reasons. As radios started being made again for the civilian market, price controls were apparently put into effect that involved a ceiling price being put on radios determined by the number of tubes. There was an early postwar _Consumer Reports_ review of radios that identified at least one example of a minor-brand "6-tube" radio that was really a regular 5-tube "AA5" set in disguise, apparently as an attempt to get around the ceiling price and be able to charge more for the set. The article didn't detail how it was done, but I'd suspect there was a "twin" of one of the tubes in the set in which one tube section was wired through one of the tubes, and the other section(s) wired using the other tube, with the leftover sections on both tubes left unused.

Also, some of the various small imported transistor radios from the 60's included several "dummy" transistors that served no purpose except as a sales aid. [e.g. to be able to proclaim "15 Transistors" (or whatever) on the radio's faceplate]

[vintagecollect]

...

[blue_lateral]

This was listed before and won but owner and buyer could reach agreement on price.

Huh? :

John