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Bakelite Metal |
Click on a knob to choose a category above.
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Greetings! Jon's Antique Radios is the larger and featured collection in the vast realm of nostalgic electronics that you can find here at electronixandmore.com. The radios in my collection are separated in five categories by the cabinet type and you can view them by clicking on a knob above to choose a category. For those who are interested in observing trends in the evolution of cabinet designs, each page has a link to Arrange by Year to sort all the radios by the year rather than by brand. I mainly collect radios from 1930 to 1940 because of the strong machine-age, art-deco, and their just plain lovely appearances during that period. However, my collection of radios spans the time from as early as 1921 to the late fifties. The majority of radios presented here are still in my collection; a few have come and gone, but their photographs remain here for you to admire and enjoy.
New Media. Through radios, what once took days or weeks for newspapers and information to spread was now instantly available at the listener’s fingertips. Radios not only served as portals to unlimited information and entertainment during the beginning of the twentieth century but also served as expressions of elegance and artistic design. Radio underwent many stages of evolution as the world changed through the decades. The Depression era of the early thirties introduced many inexpensive but captivating styles of radios aimed at the cost-conscious listener. The World War II period had a dramatic impact on various aspects of design during the decade of the forties.
Nonetheless, radio continues to have an ongoing influence on society and its technology still retains dominance. Many modern-day AM radios still use the famous superheterodyne circuit devised by Edwin Armstrong, who also invented FM radio, and even the broadcast of television and other information depends on the fundamentals of radio electronics!
Why do I collect vintage radios? There is just something about them that fascinates and conveys a certain essence of glamour and mystique. Radios were technological marvels of the time; an unique combination of marvelous cabinet designs and warm glowing vacuum tubes that miraculously delivered invisible information in the air to our ears. Radios are historical monuments of triumphs in technology and industrial design during dismal economic times.
I began collecting vintage radios in the summer of 1999. My first radio, a 1949 General Electric 124 was found in an antique store. Afterwards, in August 1999 at the age of eleven, I joined the local radio club, Vintage Radio and Phonograph Society (VRPS), in the Dallas, Texas area. At the same time, on a tiny AOL space I created this website to exhibit my ever-growing collection of radios. I gained a great amount of knowledge from numerous members at the local VRPS who generously shared their expertise and experience restoring and repairing these marvels of the past.
Jon Stanley |