Hi there, I would like some help in identifying a cabinet style vintage valve radio but I am unable to post photos in this forum. Could I email them instead?

Cheers

Paul.

    

G'day Paul,

You can e-mail any pictures to Bradmail.vintage-radio.com.au and I will include them in your post.

Hi Brad,

I have already e-mailed the photos, but if you didn't receive them please let me know and I can resend them.

Cheers.

Paul.

G'day Paul,

Photos did arrive as expected though I have been busy at work in the last week due to water leaks, etc. I will publish the photos tonight.

Paul

Lekmek were always a fan of using octagonal shaped dial surrounds and knobs so it could well be a Lekmek.

Peter

Thanks Peter,
I had a look on Google but I didn't see any Lekmek units that looked like mine. Arvin had a similar stype and so did Airline. Here are some more details of mine. The unit is approximately 600mm wide, 800mm high and 300mm deep. The cabinet in mostly plywood verneer with a solid timber used for the base, speaker board and tuner shelf. I found the unit on eBay by accident and have converted it into an mp3 music player (photo sent to Brad).

Cheers.

Paul.

I suppose a useful purpose has to come of radio cabinets that don't any longer have their 'guts'. Many of these have been turned around and converted to book cases, including a Stromberg Carlson cabinet I retrieved from a council cleanup pile three months ago.

After removing the added shelves and the curtains (remember the 60's and 70's when everyone installed floral curtains on there book cases?) I put this cabinet in storage (my garage, wrapped in Glad Wrap and draped in an old blanket) until a suitable chassis comes along.

One good thing about what you've done is that it is reversible, should you find a suitable chassis. A lot of people tend to carve bigger holes to take more modern chassis' from the 40's with their big oblong dial glasses and this ruins the value of the cabinet as a historical artifact.

Lekmek did use the Octagonal dial glass that features on this model though other brands that used it were Vasco, Briton and National.

I will add that search engines don't always serve us collectors all that well. Unfortunately there is not a great deal of information relating to Australian valve radios that is linked from any of them. In my own experience I've gone to Yahoo, Google and Bing to find information to clarify or support my own comments only to be brought back here as this website is the largest Australian vintage radio website and also the only one (that I am aware of) that operates discussion forums.

As a whole, the information collection needs to become far more diverse and plentiful though I've never been quite sure how to help achieve that.

If that's original fabric, I have seen an EMMCO with that colour and thy also tended to only have the three controls.

The dial could be EFFCO, who made several versions, which were readily available.

The cabinet however suggests upmarket & Ricketts or Bealle tend to come to the fore. EMMCO used the former.

The lack of photo's of Radio collections & a site with a good compilation of info does indeed impeed attempts at identifying radio's & parts therof.

Marc

Thanks marc, you sure know your stuff.

I am pretty sure the radio is a Beale. Here is a link to one currently fot sale:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=380137873113

I picked mine up for $65 (bargin!)

Thanks for your help.

Cheers.

Paul.

Many of the cabinet makers actually had a plate on the cabinet of the radio.

Beale & Company principally made Pianos , Radio & Sewing machine cabinets.

They did for a short time make some radio's but normally used someone elses. So it is a case of looking at some of the chassis of the day to see what they may have used or had made & basically badged. That practice was common even then.

EMMCO made a variety of electricals including radios & bits thereof & these did not all end up in their own radio's

EMMCO was principally a metering manufacturer (Electricty Meter Mfg Company) after a couple of mergers in the 1930's It eventually became Email.

Information on EMMCO sets is scarce & the only one I have ever repaired was reverse engineered as it had been monkeyed with. (Refer August 2009 Silicon Chip)
The circuit is one I traced out.

Some readers identified it as an EMMCO

You will note cabinet similarities with yours, especially the cut profile of the base.The one in SC is "absolutely" a Rickett & Thorp cabinet as it still has its plate on it. This fabric is not the original, it was too far gone. Abt 1932 for it.

Marc