Most mornings I spend about an hour answering radio-related emails. Many fall into the categories of :

How do I get my radio fixed?/ help with repair.
What is my radio worth?/Will you buy it?
What kind of radio do I have?

This Email falls into the last category. I found it particularly interesting, so, with permission, I am posting it here.


Thomas from Stockholm said:

Dear Russ !
 
 Our family owns this very old big radio that used to belong to king Gustav the 5th of Sweden in the 1930 ´s . Would you with your expertise now what model it is and when it was built ?! 
 
We would truly appreciate your knowledge!
​

It is a very large radio/phono combination.

I suspect that the switch, center/rightt is a radio/phono switch as you would find in a Panatrope of this vintage. (Panatrope was the name used by Brunswick a company that used RCA radios up until the time that RCA acquired Victor)

Looks like a Radiola escutcheon without the RCA/Radiola text.

It has an Electrola decal.

This was my reply:

Thomas,
 
The radio section its self appears to be a RCA Radiola 28, but that is not the model number of the whole assembly. 
 
In 1927 and 1928 RCA was in the process of acquiring the Victor Talking Machine Co. That is where the RCA Victor name came from. This is an Electrola, a name denoting the electric phonograph as opposed to a wind-up model. It is likely to say Victor talking Machine Co somewhere on it. The gold escutcheon near the roller knobs would have said “Radiola 28 Super-Heterodyne Radio Corporation of America had it not been made to be put into the Electrola (Victor) cabinet.
 
I do not know the model of the whole RCA Victor cabinet/assembly Which may have been a very limited production or even a custom assembly.
 
If you were to send larger pictures I might be able to tell more.
 
If you like I could post your pictures and story on my blog. Other people might know more about it and reply.
 
Russ

Radiolas are not my specialty. I can tell you about the many versions that I have worked on - This is not one of them. The radio is in storage so no additional pictures are available at this time.

Thomas is going to monitor this blog for comments, which are invited.


Steve, on ARF Said:

​That looks like a Victor Hyperion. That is quite a radio/phonograph!

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/rca_hyperion.html

-Steve


Fran, on the Philco Phorum said:

​Greetings,
What the king had there was a Victor Hyperion (Victor model Fifteen-One).  !926 to 1928 which listed for $900.)) US.  The radio was an RCA Radiola 28.  This was Victor's first all electric Orthophonic Radio - Record player combination.  It is described on page 222 of Robert Baumbach's book - Look for the Dog (first edition).
There should be a plate within the record compartment (to the rear of the compartment on  or adjacent to the motor board) with the Victor model name and number.
It was impressive at 57.25" High, 47" Wide and 19.5" deep.
The cabinet styling was Italian in nature, using walnut and maple.


Michael, posted this on ARF:

Here's some info on the Hyperion: http://www.victor-victrola.com/Hyperion.ht
​

https://books.google.com/books?id=Ck9IG ... or&f=false

Vintage Hyperion Upgrade: hhttps://forum.talkingmachine.info/view ... 9&start=10

You Tube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1LdVTMcBTE

​Buster Keaton

Thomas has provided a history of the radio:


 Briefly ….   :  my granddad ( founder of Centrum radio )  Bertil Gylling senior delivered his famous ” Centrum royal map radio" 1933 to King Gustav the fifth, 
in return from the royal castle he got the Victor Hyperion to store or just take care of . The Hyperion has been kept in its ”BOX”  since then. 
The "Centrum royal map radio" came about from a joint venture between the King and my Grandfather.  A map over Europe was displayed on the ” lock ” over  the radio & gramophone ”   and  when one  of  33 european stations
was reached a light showed where on the map the station was situated   ,  for example  Wienna or Copenhagen    .    ( se pic  )    ….  high tech in those days. There are  only 3 left in the world of this radiorarity . 
My father Bertil Gylling ( 92 ) is still around to tell the story .
 
If you want to se what the factory of Centrum looked like in the 30 / 40 ´s     check this  film  (  in Swedish  ……  ;)  )   the part about Centrum start after ca 3 min after an episode about Violins .  very old school cinema reportage style …
 
https://www.filmarkivet.se/movies/den-underbara-tonen/
​

at the royal castle in the 30 ´s   more or less every day  a  sort of  ”   Lord Chamberlain ”   played records  mostly classical music to the King &   entourage,   you see the  Centrum royal map radio and how its placed +    stacks  of 78 records  in special  shelfs  :
​

We all appreciate Thomas and his family for sharing this history with us.

Don't miss the radio assembly video (link) that Thomas provided. It is one of the best that I have seen. Makes me feel old when I see that young woman throw the big table-top into its box - I have a hard time lifting those onto the bench.
​https://www.filmarkivet.se/movies/den-underbara-tonen/

​Russ

Meissner was mostly a radio parts supplier who also produced "kit" radios to be assembled by the user. They were part of Maguire Industries Inc.

I believe that, like many manufacturers in the radio business, they wanted to show what they could do and the result was the 2961. 

Produced around 1947, the radio is AM-FM-SW with a Webster phonograph and 29 tubes.

As rare as the radio is, there are even fewer with cabinets. While I have not weighed this monster, it has to check in at around 100 lbs. The cabinet is well built, but the weight probably added to the demise of many cabinets through rough handling.

​I generally don't care for late 1940's cabinets but the wood work on this one makes it stand apart even before you open the doors.

The radio incorporates a separate amp/power supply. The amp uses 4 6L6GA tubes in PPP (parallel push pull ) configuration wired for triode operation. This yields about 20 watts output which is a considerable reduction in output from what a 6L6 amp with a pentode configuration could produce. The sacrifice was made in an attempt to produce better audio quality than a pentode could (in theory).

Above:  I know this resembles the scene from Star Trek  The City on the Edge of Forever  just before the radio blows up, but let me assure you that there were no flames here.

https://lancemannion.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451be5969e2019b00e60fea970c-pi

As fun as that would be (flames) it would also be a tragedy since the picture above is not likely to be repeated any time soon. Just  one of these amplifiers is so rare that having a pair for stereo is likely unheard of.

​It is as unlikely as having two Zenith Stratospheres on the same bench - -

 - - Well I'll be darned, two Zenith Stratospheres.

​Anyway, I did add a preamp and had a listen using the speakers in my office.

TWO Meissner 2961 amps wired for stereo.

How did they sound? OK. Like many high-powered amps, they seemed to lack a little on the top end (treble response - NOT tribble response - she can't take much more of this)

In a way I was glad that they did not sound great since they take up a lot of shelf space and I might have never put the radio back together again.

Interesting that the FM dial is "channelized" rather than reading in frequency as most modern radios do. This format was adapted from the previous FCC channel allocation (around 42 mhz.) but it was generally dropped following the war in favor of the 88 - 108mhz display format. This leads me to believe that the design was from 1946 or earlier. It probably took some time to put such a radio into production especially in such limited numbers.

​The channel numbers on this FM dial are 200 to 300.

The control area is leather and is normally protected from wear with a clear plastic sheet, removed here to reduce glare.

The upper row of push-buttons are for bass and treble control and work considerably better than the more common "tone" control. The lower row are for AM (only) station presets. The station presets are controlled by the row of knobs at the bottom. This arrangement makes setting preset stations easy. The radio drifts very little so there is no need to fiddle with the controls after selecting a station.

While the outside of the cabinet had been refinished, and, I refinished it again, the interior, including the speaker baffle, was in good shape, so it remains original - and yellowed by age. One day the new lacquer will yellow as well, but for the moment it is kind 'a two-tone. I believe in preserving as much as possible while making the project function and presentable and, hopefully, future owners will see enough value to prevent the destruction of American Technological Artifacts like the Meissner 2961.

Russ

The phonograph is a single speed, 78RPM record changer with a ceramic cartridge. Watch the demo above.