Page 72 - The Hunt - Fall 2021

German
Engineering.
European
Styling.
(Head turns come standard.)
Montclair
VINTAGE
continued from page 68
radio at the time,” says Nardone, who’s the communications manager for Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library. “The cloth over the speaker is pretty ragged these days, and the speaker is probably torn, thanks
to a curious toddler. The works may have gotten jolted during a move a few years ago, but the cabinet is still gorgeous.”
The old cabinet sets like Nardone’s
aren’t the most collected, according to Selbyville’s Domi Sanchez, a member of the Mid-Atlantic Antique Radio Club. “As our membership ages, they’re also downsizing their collections, turning their eyes to table- top radios,” Sanchez says. “They often give away their consoles, but you can still find them in antique stores and at estate sales.”
Transistor radios have become quite collectible, “as are boudoir bedroom radios,” notes Sanchez. Some collectors search out the colorful toaster-size radios with plastic housing that became quite popular after World War II.
About 30 years ago, members of the radio club decided to open a museum
in Bowie, Md., about midway between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. It’s
now called the National Capital Radio & Television Museum, and it’s open to visitors on Fridays and weekends. (Philadelphia’s Atwater Kent Museum permanently closed in 2018.)
Most of the radios on display at the Maryland museum were donated. Visitors can get a preview of the exhibits at ncrtv. org. “We have docents who can give tours, which each take about an hour,” says Brian Belanger, curator for the museum.
Or visitors can take a self-guided tour. “We have around 1,500 to 2,000 guests every year,” Belanger says. “We also have a restoration shop and teach classes in repairing vintage sets.”
One area where the interests of radio fanatics and vinyl collectors overlap: phonographs and record players. Some vintage radio consoles also came with record players that could handle the old, thick 78 rpm platters, along with 45s and standard LPs. And there are even companies that take old cabinets, restore them, and outfit them with modern turntables and state-of-the-art
sound systems. TH
Monroe
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70 THE HUNT MAGAZINE
fall 2021
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INSPIRATION
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