Vintage and Antique Radios

For millions of people who grew up listening to the radio in the 1980s, “Marconi” is the funny-sounding word kicking off the chorus of “the most detested song in human history.” But for those who follow the evolution of technology and home electronics, Guglielmo Marconi is well known as the inventor of radio, although it is just as well known that Nikola Tesla actually beat him to the punch. Marconi’s first radio-related patent came in England in 1896, when he built a wireless telegraph. His design was based on the work of Heinrich Rudolf Hertz, who had proven the existence of electromagnetic waves in the late 1880s. Marconi figured out how to transmit those waves across the English Channel, where they were picked up by a Marconi-designed receiver. By 1897, Tesla had filed his first patent in the United States for an actual radio, patents that were subsequently granted in 1900, the same year’s Marconi’s radio patent was rejected. But Marconi the Italian was apparently more charismatic and successful than his Croatia-born rival, which may explain why, in 1904, without explanation, the U.S. Patent Office changed its mind and awarded the patent for the radio to Marconi. To add insult to injury, in 1909, Marconi shared the Nobel Prize with Karl Ferdinand Braun, whose transmission and tuning technologies Marconi had freely used to send a signal clear across the Atlantic. During this period, before radio became what we think of it today, there were a number of demonstration broadcasts in the United States by the likes of Reginald Fessenden (1906), Charles Herrold (1909), and Lee de Forest (1910). It would take another decade until fully licensed, commercial radio broadcasting was launched in 1920. Concurrently, the hardware to receive these broadcasts was improving, particularly in the design of tubes, or valves as they are known in England. Because there were no regularly scheduled broadcasts prior to 1920, most of the early radios from the post-World War I years, and even into the 1920s, were sold as kits that consumers would put together themselves. Two of the companies selling those kits, as well as assembled components, were RCA and Atwater Kent, the latter of which got into the radio business in 1922. That was also the year RCA introduced it Radiola. Over at Atwater Kent, its Model 1 came with a tuner, a detector, and a one-stage amplifier, while its Model 2 featured a three-tube amplifier. By the end of 1923, Atwater Kent was up to its Model 10, which like many of its radios didn't even have a case, but by the end of the decade its radios—the company shipped 1 million units in 1929—were housed in handsome metal or wood cabinets. Crosley radios from the 1920s, including the Model X, Harko, and Ace, were similarly stripped down, resembling something a mad scientist might cook up in his garage. But the trend was clearly moving in the direction of radio as appliance, and even furniture. One of the unlikely champions of this trend was Philco, which cut its teeth making batteries for radios in 1923. Today, many people probably don’t realize that early radios ran on batteries, which needed to be taken to service station for a recharge when they ran out of juice. Cleverly, Philco started making battery chargers, and in 1925 had a huge hit with its Socket-Power units, which allowed a radio to be plugged in to an electrical outlet, charging the battery that was still required to power the radio. In 1927, RCA made such a contraption obsolete when it developed technology that permitted its radios to be powered by live current, which is how Philco came to focus its business on radios rather than the means by which they were powered, placing extra emphasis on their appearance. Initially, the most striking of these new encased radios were made out of wood. Some of these radios were built into cabinets or consoles that sat on the floor and were treated like a piece of fine household furniture. Others were small enough to sit on a table or shelf, and were given attractive tombstone or cathedral shapes. These Art Deco radios were made by companies such as Emerson, Westinghouse, and Zenith, whose 4-B-131 from 1936 was a walnut showstopper. In 1934, at the height of the Depression, Zenith also decided to introduce the Stratosphere, but with a retail price of $750, which in those days could buy you a brand new Buick, only 350 Stratospheres were made. Other vintage radios in the Art Deco style were made of Bakelite, Catalin, and other early resins or plastics became popular during the 1930s and 1940s. The F.A.D. Andrea Corporation, whose radios are known by the name Fada, are among the most beautiful plastic vintage radios of the Art Deco era. After World War II, tubes gave way to smaller, more efficient transistors, and in 1954, Texas Instruments and Regency Electronics manufactured the first pocket-size transistor radio, the Regency TR-1, which came in 10 colors and retailed for $49.95. Other popular vintage transistor-radio brands from the 1950s and early 1960s include Zenith, RCA, G.E., Motorola, Sylvania, and Emerson, while collectible Japanese brands include Toshiba, Hitachi, Sharp, Panasonic, Mitsubishi, Realtone, and Zephyr.