Well, that explains it, then. Thanks for the info. I tried it out on a Victrola and it fit like a glove! According to this ad, AK also offered a Type 6C, which I guess would have been for Columbias, as well as a Type VE-O and a Type VE-E, both of which were gold-plated. I imagine those must have been for Orthophonics, or maybe Electrolas?
So would this type of thing appeal more to radio collectors or phonograph collectors? (I'm both, but I don't have any 1920s sets anymore. I stick to the superhets these days.) Do they turn up very often? What do they bring? On 6/4/08, Greg Bogantz <gbogantz1 at charter.net> wrote: > > Several manufacturers made these, with Atwater Kent being one of the > most popular. They allowed your radio to be played thru the horn of your > phonograph. While this may sound silly to us now, in the 1920s the radio > speakers were pretty feeble and rather poor sounding. And most radio sets > of the day required that you separately purchase the speaker. For those > owners who already had a nice phonograph with a good horn on it, these > speaker drivers were a good solution. The speaker driver was less costly > than a complete radio speaker, and in many cases the driver sounded better > when played thru a good phonograph horn than any separate radio speaker of > the day. This was especially true in the late 1920s if you had an > orthophonic horn in your Victor console phono. The model number of the A-K > drivers indicates the type of phono they were designed to fit. The 5V > model > indicates that it was designed for coupling to the Victor tonearm in place > of the standard phono reproducer. I believe the ones designed for Columbia > machines were a model number something like 5C. I don't recall if there > were any A-K drivers made to fit Edison machines. > > Greg Bogantz > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "ny victrolaman" <victrolaman at gmail.com> > To: <phono-l at oldcrank.org> > Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2008 2:01 PM > Subject: [Phono-L] What is this? Atwater Kent Type 5V phonograph attachment > > > > So I was cleaning out some storage and came across what looks like a > large > > 1920s radio horn speaker driver, which I must have picked up someplace > > years > > ago. It's about three inches in diameter, with a nine-foot cord, and > it's > > quite heavy for its size. (The driver itself tests very good.) On the > > top > > it is embossed "Atwater Kent, Phila" and Type 5V. After doing some > > digging, > > I found an old ad for it on that great AK website. The ad lists it as a > > "Phonograph Attachment," but says nothing about what exactly that is, > what > > it does, and how exactly one would use it. I recall seeing some old ads > > where something of this nature is sitting on a motorboard next to a > > reproducer, but that tells me nothing. Does any out there know about > > these > > things? Anyone own one, or is anyone looking for one? I'll be happy to > > send you pictures if it'll help clear this up. Thanks in advance. > > _______________________________________________ > > Phono-L mailing list > > http://phono-l.oldcrank.org > > _______________________________________________ > Phono-L mailing list > http://phono-l.oldcrank.org >
