Bush TR130 Serial Numbers

[Mach One]

I have two TR130s - one is the kind with 'Caroline' on the scale and 'Light, Home and Third' and the other is slightly younger with 'B.B.C. 1, 2 & 3' and the regional services. A slightly obscure question: Does anyone know if the serial numbers on the chassis were intentionally different from the ones on the case at all?

My older set has '733 / 94437' as the 'serial number' and 'A. 464 174808' on the chassis. The younger one is '733 / 175397' and 'A. 464 322841.'

As a parallel question, would you expect the chassis numbers in the Murphy B818 (I think) similar set to relate to these numbers or be of a completely different range?

Yours obsessively and compulsively...

[Paul_RK]

Looking at a couple of sets here, the first TR130 to hand, a late red one, has 733/145899 and A.464 276216, and my B818, pre-'67 BBC stations but no Caroline, is 669/13580 and A.464 24788. If a few more numbers can be gathered it might become apparent whether the chassis number sequence is mixed between TR130s and B818s, which seems likely.

Paul

[Mach One]

It's not the most important of exercises but I know that I will not be the only one to think this way about such things. I looks to me as though the two numbers are entirely different.

[Paul_RK]

Another one, a post-'67 tan TR130 in "time capsule" state, apparently never put into use: 733/126804, A.464 245211. Consistently higher figures on the chassis than in the serial number, with consistently larger gaps between them, do seem to suggest that chassis numbers were allocated before being split between TR130 and B818 production streams. A B818 or two with chassis number above 174808 (your earlier TR130) would go a long way toward confirming the hypothesis.

[Andrewausfa]

I have several B818s, where are you seeing the chassis numbers?

Thanks - Andrew

[Paul_RK]

There's a paper label with the number on the aluminium chassis member that forms a side of the battery compartment.

[Andrewausfa]

Thanks Paul, sometimes you can't see the wood for the trees!

In which case
B818 BS A464 98545
B818 Lux A464 30236
B818 BS A464 251718
B818 BS A464 272122

Andrew

[Paul_RK]

Thanks Andrew, I can't claim to have noticed the chassis numbers myself before this thread set me looking for them.

Putting the A464 numbers in order, then:

B818 24788
B818 30236
B818 98485
TR130 174808
TR130 245211
B818 251718
B818 272122
TR130 276216
TR130 322841,

which seems to confirm that chassis numbers were allocated in a single sequence - there may well have been gaps in the sequence, perhaps to introduce a modification at a certain number - and only after that were the chassis divided between the Bush and Murphy models.

Paul

[Mach One]

Thank you, Paul, for taking an interest and the time. Not the most important detail to know as it were but it interested me to see what others thought.

[Paul_RK]

Originally Posted by Mach One

Not the most important detail to know as it were ...

True, but a little nerdiness is surely fair enough here

The chassis numbers seem within a limited enough range that they may be giving us a true indication of the number of sets made. Something over 320,000 TR130s and B818s combined looks plausible to me when compared with - again from trusting what serial numbers indicate - a total of a little over 230,000 DAC90As, over a longer production period, and 90,000 or so Hacker Sovereign IIs across the three successive models RP25, 25A and 25B. Such figures are always maxima, except in that the latest known set won't be the very last one that was produced: there shouldn't be any duplicated numbers, but there's nothing to prevent clusters of numbers along the way being left unissued.

I'm not at all sure when the repro TR130 first appeared, in tan before pink and "cowskin" versions followed, but when it did its ad in the Radio Times referenced the 1966 World Cup, and claimed, unless my memory's playing tricks again, that the TR130 was the best selling transistor radio of the 1960s.

Paul