Fisher 500B made in 1965.....

1rebmem

Halffast
Subscriber
I have read that the Fisher 500B was only made in 1961 and 1962 before being replaced by the 500C. And any units purchased after 1962ish were leftover dealer inventory.

These pictures of my 500B indicate otherwise based on date coding information I am going by from posts by larryderouin primarily. I don't doubt Larry at all. I just think the 500B was produced for more than a couple of years as commonly stated.
All of the tubes in this unit were Fisher branded, except for the power tubes, and have date codes of 1965.
(I have replaced some of the Fisher tubes)


DSC01126.JPGDSC01127.JPGDSC01128.JPGDSC01129.JPG

Please comment and correct me as needed,

Jef
 

Attachments

  • DSC01125.JPG
    DSC01125.JPG
    66 KB · Views: 64
What date codes are on the large electrolytic filter caps? Those will likely get you close to the year made if original. Tubes did get replaced on daily driver receivers and separates as necessary (usually then people who owned something of this quality, tried to keep it maintained). Also, this 500B could have been built from leftover parts to clear out excess parts inventory.
 
Those tuning transformers are common to the later receivers...

I think there might have been something artificially keeping the 500-B in production. It would have cannibalized sales of the next generation receivers for Fisher to keep it on the market, unless profit margins were really good on the 500-B.

The 500-B appears in the Allied catalog thus:
1965 at $249.50; lower cost than the 400 ($280.08) / 500-C ($331.08) / 800-C ($382.08).
1966 at $229.95; lower cost than the 400 ($237.58) / 500-C ($297.08) / I couldn't find 800-C in 1966 catalog, but it's the only one of the four in the 1967 catalog and it's $339.58

The excerpt next to the 500-B in 1965 says that because of their (Allied's) purchasing power they can bring this good deal. Maybe Fisher made a deal with Allied to supply a bunch of 500-B's and they didn't sell as well, so it took several years sales before Fisher fulfilled their obligation? Fisher wouldn't have bet the farm on the 500-B because they already had the 500-C in the works when it came out.

I guess there is also the question of availability - was the Allied catalog the only place to buy Fishers in some locations?

It is noteworthy that the original brass face X-100 is also still in the 1965 Allied catalog - 5 years after I would have thought manufacture ended. Maybe a similar story? Possibly just an old picture I suppose... might be aluminum face you receive.
 
Last edited:
In addition to the Big CAN CAP Date codes, look at the transformers for Date codes too. Allied did a lot of overstock buying, and with the 500B/800B selling as late as 1966 they probably were. Either that or FISHER had a bunch of leftover parts (chassis', and other parts) that were specific to the 500b and 800b, and they did a limited run for Allied.
 
What date codes are on the large electrolytic filter caps?

I don't know about dates on the can caps but the IF transformers all have the 119 EIA code followed by 65 which indicates the year I believe.
I could get pics of the can caps but I believe the IF transformers tells us a 1965 date.
The O.T. shows an EIA code of 926 followed by 4304 which I believe indicates a manufacture date of 1964.
Tubes can be replaced of course, but I wouldn't expect them to all still be dated 1965, which matches the IF cans.

Jef
 
Jef. What's the part # on the P.T. and O.T.'s doesn't seem to me that FISHER would produce an model that has been superceded by a newer model, Should be something like T860-142 for the P.T. and T860-116-3 and T860-116-4 IIRC. If They're DIFFERENT Document the HELL out of them and let us know what's on them.
Larry
 
It's hard to get a decent shot of the can caps, sorry.

It's hard to believe Fisher would build a 500B in 1965 right?
It just looks like so many components of this unit are from 1965???

Not that it matters really, it is a good sounding Fisher. But very interesting......
 
DSC01134.JPG
The other O.T.

DSC01138.JPG
DSC01139.JPG
Can cap's

DSC01140.JPG
Volume Control
134 is the EIA code for Centralab so the date code is......
 

Attachments

  • image.png
    image.png
    12.6 KB · Views: 22
Y'all are making me want to go look at the 500B sitting on my bench. It's a mid 30000's serial number. Would be interesting if it's got the same collection of parts.
 
I've got a somewhat rusty 500B in the queue, but the serial number isn't visible. Looks like it was never stamped. I know the chassis looks rather pitted/rusted, but for a stamped serial number I would think that I could/should still see it. I'll go ahead and check the other parts for date codes.

IMG_0839 copy.jpg
 
Ok. Took pics of the 3 trannies in my rusty 500B and the numbers on each end in 62, 63 and 64.

Are we sure these are date codes?

IMG_0840.JPG IMG_0843.JPG IMG_0844.JPG
 
Tim, on those 3 trannies, 926 is the EIA manufacturer code and the number that follows that represents the year. So all three would be made in 1962 because they have a 2 after the 926. This is per Larry's interpretation from past threads.
Jef
 
Reb; Trannies are 1964 30th week, Can cap looks like 1966 40th week. The insulated can is 1966 50th week. looks to me like FISHER did a limited run with parts from similar units or left over stock. Usually I've found that normal stock will only have a disparity in dates of a month or two, not two years between all the dated parts.

Tims are date coded differently. If you take the numbers and use the 1st number as the year and the 2nd and 3rd combined for the week it doesn't make sense. However if you take the 1st pair as the week and the 2nd pair as the year, it makes sense. ie; 9262864(OT#1) is Todd Electric 28th week of 1964 9262963(OT#2) is Todd Electric 29th week of 1963 and 9262862(PT) is Todd electric 28th week of 1962. I suspect that his unit also had a serial number rubber stamped rather than punch stamped.

Fisher was going thru the transistion from ALL Tube to Solid State from 1964 to 1967 and it is quite possible that they made a limited run to clear inventory.
 
Thanks to everyone who commented so far.

So a take-away for me is that these Fisher 500B components were manufactured in 1964, 1965 and 1966 so the units were built during those years, concurrently with the 500C. These 500B's weren't built from left over stock from 1961-1963 as commonly thought.

Also, on Tim's unit Larry said this:
9262864(OT#1) is Todd Electric 28th week of 1964 9262963(OT#2) is Todd Electric 29th week of 1963 and 9262862(PT) is Todd electric 28th week of 1962
I find this interesting:
OT #1 was made 28th week of 1964
OT #2 was made 29th week of 1963
PT was made 28th week of 1962
The transformers are from 3 different years. Sure, maybe someone installed replacement trannies along the way, who knows.

OK Matt in Oakland waiting to see about yours, I know you are a busy man...........

Jef
 
I’ll be reporting in after the holiday. Having a beer at the airport as I type

This seems like as good a time as any to get a roll call of serial numbers and date codes.
 
Interesting that they were still selling the 500B at this late date. Wonder if it was the same with the 800B?
 
Back
Top Bottom