When I'm 64 - An Alba Story

[SeanStevens]

I almost left this poor beast at Frome last week. It looked sad and scruffy - not really a beauty. I popped the back open and was shocked by the mixture of large valves tucked inside. I teetered on walking away, but bought it out of pity.

Armed with a Variac and a prevailing wind................. Motorboating of the highest order. I got a few stations by winding the volume right down - but definitely instability.

I checked the case carefully and found a woodworm hole - so I popped the chassis out and the case got treated.

We visited Ian - The trader sheet had an error on it - but after identifying that, we changed a few usual suspect capacitors to no avail - motorboating just would not go away. Ian and I sourced an EF39 equivalent - popped it in and - PERFECT! All sorts of stations appeared - after lining it up it sounded amazing.

The case was in reasonable condition till I got to it - using a scraper to remove varnish/lacquer I found no WW holes visible on the outer of the case - I noticed that the lacquer fell of the upper wood veneer - but clung hard to the bur walnut. It took longer to clean off than I expected.

The case had matt black painted ends when I got it. I don’t know if it left ALBA like that, but it looked nice as it was. I repainted these, and then decided that the other wood bits and pieces (being brown) might look better matching the ends. The fact that I had no matching brown paint did not affect my decision.

After removing the huge speaker, the speaker cloth came off easily (old glue) and was noticeably faded on the outer side. I gave this a light wash and left it to dry flat on a flagstone. When dry, I popped this back in ‘back to front’ and spend 10 minutes aligning it as the pattern showed up the slightest deviation from horizontal.

The case got 3 coats of Danish oil - not much else. I like the satin finish over high gloss.

After that, speaker and baffle back in - chassis back in - soldered the speaker up and photographed for the forum!

This is a gorgeous sounding radio - I wonder why ALBA went from this to the cheap end of the market?

[Aub]

Well done - smashing job!

[Patrick Dixon]

Lovely job.

[Tim]

Nice Job Sean.I've never seen one of those before.
Frome chattels auction does come up trumps from time to time. I've only been successful once, and as it's on a weekday and don't have any more room for radios I don't visit any more.

[kalee99]

Very well done, What a lovely example of fine British manufacturing. A good solid chassis in a good solid cabinet with nice finish.
Bet it sounds great?
I love these British wooden cased sets
Paul.

[neon indicator]

The Alba of that beautiful radio has little or no connection with today's Alba, an Argos brand. Alba died in 1982.

Somewhere along the way Bush and Goodmans died too.

Alba, Bush and Goodmans have been nothing more than badges for over 20 years.

The name Alba is formerly a trademark used on radio and television produced by A.J. Balcombe Ltd. The company was originally formed in 1917 by Alfred Balcombe, becoming known as Alba in 1960, and eventually going into receivership in June 1982. During that time, it was a significant contributor to the development of the British radio & TV industry. In 1982, it was bought by Harvard International (formerly Harris Overseas Ltd before 1982). Harvard was floated in 1987 as Alba plc, buying Bush Radio in 1988 and adding Goodmans in 1994.

In November 2008, the Bush brand name, along with Alba, were purchased by Home Retail Group, the parent company of Homebase and Argos, for £15.25 million. As a result the former Alba Group has now been renamed to Harvard International. Harvard International still owns the Bush brand in Oceania.

They did home catalogues before they did Argos.

GUS is an abbreviation of Great Universal Stores, the company's former name before 2001. On 10 October 2006, the company was split into two separate companies which continue to exist as Home Retail Group and Experian.

Harvard formerly Alba PLC

Alba made only low-cost consumer products under its own brand name but has both founded and acquired other companies either wholly, in part or UK manufacturing rights, building it into a large company. Beyond its own name, Goodmans, Breville and Hinari are its best known brands. In addition, until May 2008, Alba was joint owner of the German brand Grundig, along with Turkish electronics giant Beko. [The Satellite box part of Grundig was sold separately to Thomson, In the US products marketed under the Grundig brand are manufactured by the Eton Corporation (formerly Lextronix)]

Alba also used to own Pulse Home Products which it purchased in October 2001. Pulse Home Products was sold in 2007 to the Rutland Partners private equity group

(All from various Wikipedia articles, though there isn't one titled Alba, you have to search for Alba PLC)

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_International

[Alistair D]

Now that IS a wireless.

Looks brilliant. Well done.

Al

[Andrewausfa]

What a lovely set, well done Sean When I was younger, without knowing the company's early history as I do now, all I can remember of Alba is a name synonymous with cheap tat. It's good to be reminded that name was once on sets like this.

PS: Sean just looking on the Radio Museum site at the 474, it did seem to have black sides.

Andrew

[radiotircoed]

Cracking restoration. Well done. Love to have that in my collection!
Bob W

[kalee20]

Alba isn't a make that attracts me - but after seeing this set I'm going to have to rethink!

Lovely job on the cabinet, nice looking chassis. I like the string pointer mechanism on the wavechange switch. I take it that it uses an octal valve line-up?

Well done!

[PJL]

Very nice job, it seems to be a model 473 from 46/47. I just purchased a radio from the same period but no back and hence no maker and it is similarly solidly built with a geared slo-mo drive. Considering these were built post war during rationing and shortages I guess they would have been a real luxury item.

[geofy]

Would liked to have seen more of the chassis, a very smart radio and what looks like a ten inch loudspeaker in good condition so must sound very good. I have only seen one other radio with a speaker of this size, can't recall the make though it had a metal mesh grill. Well Done.

[Paul_RK]

Originally Posted by Andrewausfa

...just looking on the Radio Museum site at the 474, it did seem to have black sides....

Sides, base and tuning scale surround were given a very dark stain originally, the speaker bars maybe a tad less dark. This one's just been tidied up and the speaker cloth washed and reattached.

It's often been said that many companies' build quality was at its best in the early post-war years, as it took a while for the standards demanded by work for the military to lapse back to ordinary cost-conscious domestic ways. Having said that, early '30s Albas are very well put together too, and late '30s ones not too bad at all. The 473 (or 474 if AC/DC) is a nice heavy job that also appeared in a slightly different cabinet under the Aerodyne brand.

Regards,
Paul

[HamishBoxer]

Looking at that excellent cabinet,was it just a paint scraper you used?
David

[ms660]

Nice job.
Cheers.

[stitch1]

Now that's a nice radio and an excellent job, I like the finish too.

[SeanStevens]

In reply to HamishBoxer - I scraped the finish off using (mainly) blunt Stanley blades. I don't have a real scraper.

SEAN

[murphyv310]

Brilliant job Sean.
I did one of these for a local lad a few weeks ago and it worked beautifully, sensitive, loud and a good tone. They are well worth looking out for.

[vinrads]

Very nice well done indeed the Danish oil gives a lovely finish I must try it on my next restoration . Mick.

[Hybrid tellies]

An amazing restoration job here,congratulations. Just loved looking at the station names and thier places on the dial.