I saw this radio at the Third Sunday Market in Bloomington IL a while back. Other than the name Philco I didn't know anything else about this radio. Fortunately if you want to find out about Philco radios there is an excellent site, Philco Radio . There I was able to find that this radio is a Philco Lowboy 65. It was introduced in the fall of 1929. The model was very popular and is said to be easy to find today. How this radio went from likely spending years with a central place in some families home to sitting in an open field at a flea market is a story I would love to hear. I imagine this radio once carried the news of the early days of the Great Depression to the election of FDR. It may even have lasted through WWII and up to when it was replaced by a TV.
The Westinghouse Model WR29 above was sitting in the same open area as the Philco Low Boy. First made in 1934, the Westinghouse Model WR29 probably heard news of John Dillinger's bank robbing career and death. I wonder how this radio has managed to survive for 80 years?
The Philco Model 41-280X was introduced in 1941. The original selling price was $69.95 which would be equal to $1076 today. So for most people this was a major purchase. And since this was one of the most popular radios of it's time it was a price that a lot of people were willing to pay. The Model 41-280X is more sophisticated than the two radios presented earlier. In addition to the AM band the Model 41-280X has shortwave bands and police and aircraft bands. There are also 8 preset push buttons like those that many of us can remember being on car radios. Almost undoubtedly this is a radio that saw anxious faces listening for news of WWII. And probably of the three it is the one most likely to have hung around long enough to be replaced by a TV.
The Rock-Ola Model 1458 was made in 1958. By that time the three radios above had probably either been retired or moved to a less important place in the house. Unlike the older console radios for a price a jukebox the Rock-Ola let you pick the songs you wanted to hear. And the music that they played was often a kind that those from the days of the console radio found disturbing. I was just a little kid when rock music was just catching on, however I can vividly remember the divide between those who thought it was music and those who thought it was noise. And because of that divide the Rock-Ola Model 1458 was probably in the middle of more controversy than any of the three radios that I have talked about.
