I'm heading to a Michael DeMeng workshop in New Orleans. Michael specializes in assemblage art, transformations as he calls it. Through out the year, but especially prior to a workshop, I purchase junky items from antique stores, collectors homes and E-Bay. This year the workshop is making a ghost house, a place for offerings to apease un-happy ghosts. With that in mind, I recently picked up an old radio. Numerous postal receipts were inside (in numerical order), all dated 1909, from a post office in Laneville, West Virginia. This set me on a quest to see if the radio actually was from 1909. Thanks to the internet, I was not only able to determine the year the radio was made, but how much it sold for.
This radio is a 1933 Crosley model #148, the "Fiver" Cathedral. It sold for $59.95. Now (I ask), what was the status of television in 1933? Here's a little time line:
1936 about 200 television sets are in use world wide
1937 CBS begins TV development
1939 The Worlds Fair and Roosevelt's first presidential speech is broadcast, some had to couple that with their radio if they wanted to hear sound.
1941 The FCC releases the NTSC (National Television System Committee) standard for black and white TV
1950 FCC approves the first color television standard
Bottom line, this radio was certainly someones primary source of entertainment. Look at the wear around the old knobs. It may not look the best, but I am able to glean many internal parts, pictured are only a few.
My plans - cut it in half and make two backs for assemblage work. Taking these old American made objects apart reveals incredible workmanship. There is also an advertisement inside, apparently the radio was fixed (at least once). Imagine that, fixing something instead of buying new. As for plastic contents, only 1, the radio dial (only AM). So that's at least part of the story about the little radio that went from Laneville, West Virginia to New Orleans. Stay tuned.
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have a great trip karen! can't wait to see what you create :D
Posted by: laura mcdonald | 01/27/2012 at 06:21 PM