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Vintage Radio (domestic) Domestic vintage radio (wireless) receivers only.

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Old 4th Mar 2021, 1:42 pm   #1
greenstar
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Default Tables for radios

My Grandparent's wireless, mid-late 30's, was enshrined in their parlour (never heated and only sat in on very special occasions), and had it's own table. This was just the right size for a medium tombstone set. It was a rather nice oak thing with turned legs and a top just larger than the wireless base. You could not put anything else under it - no cupboard or drawers there.
My Grandad would every evening take the set off, bring the stand into the back room for the evening's listening, (after the meal) then bring the set through. And take it all back afterwards!
I have recently noticed one or two similar tables in charity shops, and am now waiting for them to reopen and a nice one to turn up.
I am wondering if these were wireless tables made for the purpose. I suppose you could use such a table for a tray of coffee or tea paraphernalia, but they would be far too small to layout cups etc, and too high for people sat down.
My mum still has one of the original TV tables we had in the 60's, with her LCD TV upon it, a shelf beneath for Radio Times and later the never even imagined video cassette recorders.
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Old 4th Mar 2021, 3:17 pm   #2
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Default Re: Tables for radios

A good point, I suspect tables must have been available made for that purpose. We all know Ekco made stands for some of their round sets. As for other radio manufactures
the only one I can think of is the table this Murphy A26 sits on. Probably designed by RD Russell who also designed the radio. I like the underneath slot to keep the Radio Times in.
I've never seen one in real life, I wonder if Mike Barker has one!
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Old 4th Mar 2021, 3:27 pm   #3
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Default Re: Tables for radios

My A8 sits on it's purpose built stand

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/murphy_a8_a_8.html

I must upload a picture of mine once I get around to replacing the speaker cloth with the original style one.

Cheers

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Old 4th Mar 2021, 7:34 pm   #4
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Default Re: Tables for radios

Heres a picture of my A8 and stand and the speaker silk still to be fitted

Cheers

Mike T
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Old 5th Mar 2021, 1:02 pm   #5
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Default Re: Tables for radios

This reminded me of the television set in my aunt’s house in the early 50’s. It was an early Philips. The thing weighed a ton and sat on its own table with a tea towel draped over the screen secured by an ornament in the top of the set. When it came time to watch tv and we were all in position, the tea towel was ceremonially lifted up and the set switched on. Afterwards the tea towel would be lowered again - but only when the light spot on the crt had faded away. When ITV came she still would only watch BBC because, “It was bad for the tv to change channel” - well the rotary switch was quite stiff and clunky. She only watched ITV when she got a taste for “Coronation Street” after seeing it in our house many years later.
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Old 5th Mar 2021, 6:37 pm   #6
greenstar
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Default Re: Tables for radios

Easy to forget how significant in the household a radio was in the 30's, and a TV in the 50's. I suspect most people had never even seen a radio in the 20's. My mum told me she first heard a broadcast on a neighbour's crystal set when she was about 10 years old, which would be 1933 ish. 'It was a box with a headphone, and you could hear talking coming out of it'. She lived in a terraced house in a small mining town. So when a well off uncle bought them a wireless (they never called it a radio), it was a major change, and it was given it's own table.
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Old 6th Mar 2021, 11:11 am   #7
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Default Re: Tables for radios

I recall my mother saying that in the early twenties there was a booth on the local fairground where they charged punters to hear a crystal set in operation. My mother was miffed because " all I could hear was a hissing noise!"
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Old 6th Mar 2021, 11:31 am   #8
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Default Re: Tables for radios

I have a small table in my workshop that I believe is for a television and I read an article recently about furniture for televisions. The table is now home to my 3D printer. I bought from a charity shop for £20 several years ago.
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Old 6th Mar 2021, 1:24 pm   #9
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Default Re: Tables for radios

HMV offered this walnut radio table in their 1938 catalogue.
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Old 6th Mar 2021, 1:29 pm   #10
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Default Re: Tables for radios

And my homemade A22 table can be seen here https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...ad.php?t=57515
 
Old 6th Mar 2021, 2:03 pm   #11
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Default Re: Tables for radios

Quote:
Originally Posted by greenstar View Post
My mum still has one of the original TV tables we had in the 60's, with her LCD TV upon it, a shelf beneath for Radio Times and later the never even imagined video cassette recorders.
My parents had one of those well into the 80s; it originally supported several successive Baird tellies [from Radio Rentals]. When they got a VCR, my father made up an extra shelf for it!

Personally, in the late-70s I made a 'radio table' out of scaffold-tube and angle-iron, welded together and painted with blue "Hammerite" - it supported my AR88, whose weight was sufficient to have distorted the wooden desk it previously sat-upon so badly that the drawers wouldn't open any more.
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Old 6th Mar 2021, 4:15 pm   #12
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Default Re: Tables for radios

Does anyone know if Murphy offered a table suitable for the A52. If so does any one have a picture. I would love to make a copy.

Bill
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Old 6th Mar 2021, 5:21 pm   #13
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Default Re: Tables for radios

Apart from the designated tables or stands offered by specific companies to use with their products, I suppose there would be numerous other items already within households that could be utilised for Radios and TV's. My recollection in the fifties is that the sideboard would be an obvious candidate within a "two up and two down" house. In Lancs, we had a lean-to kitchen adjoining the [main] middle, living and dining room. Not as big as that sounds but with a "woodie" on the sideboard all the same. The relatively unused "best" room at the front eventually had a TV, so it was then more inhabited but I don't think a table was required for it's console type case. You can see radios in all sorts of locations when viewing vintage films on TPTV type channels.

Tanuki mentions the extreme example of an AR88 metal set. I got an ex-office desk for mine [free!] It's the type constructed from a 1" square steel tubing welded framework [not scaffolding], strong wooden shelves, plug board at the rear and solid 2" wheels at each corner. Sturdy and also mobile! [Silver and Blue].

Dave W
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Old 6th Mar 2021, 11:29 pm   #14
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Default Re: Tables for radios

Quote:
Originally Posted by greenstar View Post
My Grandparent's wireless, mid-late 30's, was enshrined in their parlour (never heated and only sat in on very special occasions), and had it's own table. This was just the right size for a medium tombstone set. It was a rather nice oak thing with turned legs and a top just larger than the wireless base. You could not put anything else under it - no cupboard or drawers there.
I think you may be describing either an "occasional table" or a large plant stand which your grandad repurposed for his radio.
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Old 7th Mar 2021, 12:22 am   #15
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Default Re: Tables for radios

Bill,
A table for the Murphy A52 was never specifically marketed. However a number of Gordon Russell radio tables were produced.
Some were generic that would suit a number of radios, and not just Murphy and then a few with specific Murphy models in mind.

The A3A and the A8 pedestals were specific to those radios.

A few larger Murphy dealers supplied radio tables in styles to suit specific models, but these were not Gordon Russell or Murphy but instead made by generic furniture companies or companies local to the particular dealer.

I have a number of the Gordon Russell radio tables in my collection and I have attached pictures of some and also the details of some from the Murphy News.

Mike...
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Old 7th Mar 2021, 12:23 am   #16
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Default Re: Tables for radios

A few more.
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Old 7th Mar 2021, 1:12 am   #17
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Default Re: Tables for radios

Not forgetting the HMV 655, the radio which was also a table....
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Old 7th Mar 2021, 10:18 am   #18
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Default Re: Tables for radios

Quote:
Originally Posted by turretslug View Post
Not forgetting the HMV 655, the radio which was also a table....

I imagine one would have to lie on the floor to view and adjust the tuning dial/ magic eye and then sit in an armchair to the side. The sound would then be directed into the side of the armchair.
Warm and woolly and comforting.
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Old 7th Mar 2021, 12:52 pm   #19
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Default Re: Tables for radios

Possibly the owner had a butler to do demeaning things like crouching down in order to administer to the wireless whilst he relaxed in leather-supported comfort with his pipe and a copy of The Times. (No intention of being sexist, just reflecting the era!). I'm in danger of slipping into Jeeves and Wooster-type stereotyping, though.
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Old 7th Mar 2021, 4:28 pm   #20
B.Taylor
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Default Re: Tables for radios

Mike,

Thanks very much for all the info and pictures.

The table you have the A52 on looks perfect for this model. It is also my favourite of the examples you have sent.
I don't have time at the present but at some point I will enjoy making a copy of this.

Regards, Bill
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