1941 Philharmonic Futura K-1!!!!!!!!!

What console would you get up at 3 AM and drive 930 miles in 18 hours for? (Spending significantly more on gas than on the console itself.)

My answer to that question: a 1941 Philharmonic Futura K-1.



This is NOT one of the utterly unremarkable post-war Philharmonics. This is the REAL DEAL from Avery Fisher's first company: Philharmonic Radio COMPANY - not Corporation. I know of ONE other Philharmonic and it's in the Smithsonian. I've heard rumors of others but this is the first one I can definitely confirm. There must be a few more out there but so far nobody's talking.



This "build sheet" actually has the name of original owner. It's in pencil and was almost impossible to read. However, with a little digital enhancement, you can just about make it out:



In case you still can't make it out:

Name: Arthur Sturcke
Order No: 1674
Date:
Model: K1 FM (Demo)
Cabinet: Cromwell
Phono: Manuel
Scale: Local
Misc:

Based on what Google returns, Arthur Sturcke was a Painter who exhibited in the 30s and 40s. He apparently had a large collection of books, spoke out against Hitler in the early 30s and yet is described as a Pacifist. (?) He spent his later years in Jersey City, NJ. I'm not sure where he was living during the 40s but, based on the: "Scale: Local" bit of information above; I'd say he was listening to the NY radio stations.

There's a photo of this exact model in the Nov. 1941 issue of Consumer Reports on FM Radio-Phonographs. The caption reads "ALL-AROUND BEST . . . of the FM combinations tested was this $370 Philharmonic Futura K-1." Bottom of the second page:

www.vacuumtubeera.net/ConsumersReports-Nov1941-FM.pdf

Unfortunately, this one was updated sometime after WWII with an FM receiver using the modern frequencies. The original "Manuel" phonograph (probably Garrard) was also replaced in the early 50s with an unknown transcription-type turntable with a Pickering 190 tone arm and an S-120M cartridge. There is also a very rough, DIY-looking hole cut into the back of the cabinet for the tone arm counter-balance. Jeez, Arthur sure was in a hurry to try out those new micro-groove records, wasn't he? The replacement FM tuner job looks much more professional. I'm thinking somebody from Avery's new company (Fisher Radio, I think he's calling it) was nice enough to make a house call when the US Govt. decided to move the FM band.



More to follow as soon as I can find some help to get it out of the car. It's very, very heavy although the cabinet is surprising small.

WOW!

Great find!

Are you going to try to find an original turntable?

Thanks for the pictures.

Congratulations!

What an excellent find!!!

I'm sure we are all jealous. Well, at least I am.

Quite an amazing story so far.

Hell, you could have called and had a Co-Driver!!!!!! DAMN! That thing is sweet!!!!

If you keep reading down to page 3, the original Phonograph is listed. A Webster-Rauland DELUXE Mixer-Changer. And it used a General Electric JFM-90 FM TUNER Chassis. I'll give them a pass as they were a Young Co.!

That Tonearm has some SERIOUS OVERHANG! I'd hate to be the paying parent of the kid with THAT overbite. Third Mortgage for orthodonture!

Seriously, Ya done good, Red.

That is a great historical piece. I hope you are able to restore it to its original factory condition. I'd help you move it, but I don't live on that side of the country (I know what it's like to have moving help bail at the last minute)

larryderouin said:

Hell, you could have called and had a Co-Driver!!!!!! DAMN! That thing is sweet!!!!

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I really did consider calling you, Larry. Especially after your adventure with Buglegirl. It would have made for interesting circumstances to finally meet under. But it was truly a spur of the minute decision once I finally heard back from the seller. I had requested some photos to confirm that it was, indeed, a pre-war Philharmonic. Unfortunately she sent me back too many large photos for my email server and they were getting bounced back to her. When I didn't hear back right away I figured it must certainly be gone. (It had all ready been up on Craigslist for 5 days when I first spotted it.)

I'm very glad I jumped on it when I did since the Gals who were selling it have a business re-purposing and reselling old furniture. It was slated to become a bar if they couldn't sell it. They must have had some sense that it was more than just your average old radio console to have offered it on Craigslist. They seemed genuinely pleased that someone (me) who really appreciated it was buying it. I'm sure they could see how excited I was and they seemed to share my excitement. (Or maybe they were just glad to unload it!) I attempted to explain the console's significance and asked, "Had they ever heard of Avery Fisher? Avery Fisher Hall?" No, but that didn't seem to matter - they we're probably just amused at my level of enthusiasm. I was pretty giddy.

They took a photo with the three of us standing in back of the Philharmonic to use either on their Facebook page or their Blog. I shudder to think how incredibly scruffy, disreputable and downright goofy I will appear in that photo - especially considering I got no sleep the night before and had been on the road for 8 hours. I'll be sure to post a link once it's up.

One of their neighbors did a classic double-take as he walked by while we were preparing to load the Philharmonic into my car. He pointed to my VA plates, raised an eyebrow and told me that I had a bit of a drive back home - didn't I? Yup. Oh, and it was a loooonnnnng drive home. I could have used a co-driver, Larry. Beautiful drive, though - especially through the mountains on I-68 - an empty Interstate at night - in and out of the fog, dodging the deer and playing hide and seek with the nearly full moon as it would set behind a looming black ridge and reappear around the next bend. I watched it rise later the same day between sunset-lit thunderheads on the way back. Truly an epic drive. (Although it was very hard listening to all the 9/11 anniversary coverage on NPR.) I made a recording of my latest find and new favorite album, Jack Fascinato, Music From A Surplus Store especially for this trip. That, the scenery, the crazy drivers in Ohio and the Philharmonic in the back kept me from feeling too blue.

Looks like you have the oldest Fisher console now! Beautiful cabinet.

Nice, very nice. Any idea of its operating condition?

You're my audio hero. That is dedication sir! I'm not very into "collecting" stuff like I used to but that is one RARE historical piece as Charlton Heston would say "FROM MY COLD DEAD HANDS!" :uzi:

Kory

That is an amazing find. Congratulations!!!

Now that is a find! I can't wait to see more of the controls and the drivers. Good luck finding the correct turntable!

From the very few pictures I've seen of that model, the new FM tuner was the same design as the old one, just with the modernized FM band instead of the old one.

That is truly a piece of history! And it couldn't have gone to a more appropriate owner! Congrats!!

I just got notified of a bunch of pic's Red just uploaded to Photobucket. This thing is just .......................................................................WOW:jawdrop::jawdrop::jawdrop::jawdrop::jawdrop:
Some SERIOUS parts in this thing.
But I'll let HIM post the link.

Larry

The Cabinet:

With the help of my neighbor I was able to get the K-1 Futura into the basement this morning. It certainly feels like it weighs even more than the Premiere which is considerably larger. Although, the K-1 Futura's three separate chassis undoubtedly weigh much more the single TA-600 in the Premiere, (which, coincidentally, is really just a Futura, itself - hence its model number: F-220).

What comes next is always the best part of bringing home a new console: the initial exploration and disassembly. Usually I just go nuts, dig right in and have it down to bare cabinet in an hour or two. With this one I'm taking my time and taking lots of photos. You will notice I haven't even begun to clean it which I usually do before taking any photos.

I've got it situated on an old bath mat so I can slide it around on our brand new Harmonium (a fancy name for Linoleum) floor. According to the Nov. 1941 issue of Consumer Reports, Philharmonic used walnut on the '41 Cromwell cabinet. The grain on this cabinet is very striking. The thought crossed my mind that this might be the very same console that Consumer Reports tested (especially since it is described as a "Demo" model on the build sheet). Close inspection of the K-1's grain in the magazine photo as compared to mine shows otherwise.

Overall the cabinet condition isn't bad considering its age. There is an area along the lower portion of the right front corner where the finish is worn completely through and another area along the back side of the left-hand (phonograph-side) lid where the finish is ruined. There are dings and scratches evenly distributed over the entire surface and a couple of moisture rings on the top. There is also quite a bit of white paint spatter and a small paint spill below the grill. I believe those are quite recent - perhaps only a few days old. That shows just how close the K-1 came to becoming a born-again bar.

Of course the grill cloth is stained and torn. Fortunately it looks like a fairly common type that should be easy to replace.







The Control Panel:

AM-FM High Fidelity at its pre-war best! Just look at this thing! This is the most elegant control panel I have ever seen. I don't even know what all the knobs do . . . and I don't care! One of the documents I found in the Smithsonian's 1937 Philharmonic Futura accession files was a letter from Victor Brociner, dated June 19, 1960, with a very detailed description of the K-1:

"The Model K-1 was a complete re-design, initiated by me and completed with the assistance of the Hazeltine Laboratories as part of their service to licensees. This was a band-pass superheterdyne receiver using adjustable bandwidth I.F. transformers, a band-pass r.f. stage, beam-power output stage, over-all feedback over 3 stages, and a woofer-tweeter speaker combination. A photostat of the service notes for this set is enclosed. [As of this date the good folks at the Smithsonian have been unable to locate any of the enclosures listed with this letter.]

For further purposed of identification, the tuned-radio-frequency sets [Here Mr. Brociner is referring to the original 1937 Philharmonic Futura.] were manufactured on a chassis with a grey wrinkle finish, and had slide-rule dials that were rear-illuminated. The dial plates were of plastic, with maroon designations on a cream back ground. The later Model K1 was on a cadmium plated chassis. [Yikes!] The dial was edge-lighted, with green designations on a black background. The tuning indicator was mounted so that it was visible through the dial face."

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Inside The Cabinet:

As you can see I was able to gain access to the speaker enclosure. It wasn't easy, (perhaps because of the humidity,) but this was the tightest fitting rear speaker panel I have ever encountered. I tried repeatedly today to put it back but it just won't go - no matter how hard I pound on it. I'd like to keep it closed up to keep the cats from getting in there with that nasty old acoustic insulation. For now I've got it pushed as close to the wall as the compound-fracture tone arm will allow. Note the size of the bracing used to stiffen the already stiff 3/4" back panel. That Jensen A-12 field coil woofer must generate some serious SPL's to have required timber framing on this scale. It is seriously larger than a 2X4.

I removed the FM tuner so I could finally get a good look at the K-1 broad-band broadcast superhet. I have no idea what I'm looking at with something this old but I'm still impressed just with the look of the thing. It's pretty big considering the power supply is on a separate chassis with the power amp down there in that little cubby on the right side. There's an identical-sized empty compartment just below which must have been for the optional "volume expander". Note also the tiny phono preamp sitting on the shelf below the turntable. It uses a single 6SC7 and has no discernible maker marks. It would have been added around 1950 when the original phonograph was replaced and Arthur moved up to the new magnetic cartridges. I know it's not from Philharmonic and I doubt it's from Fisher.

That is just an amazing piece of engineering. I'm still awestruck to see this has survived all these years intact.

Mingo said:

Nice, very nice. Any idea of its operating condition?

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Well, it's 70 years old and it appears to have remained pretty much untouched since Arthur's attempt at carpentry when he updated it around 1950. Without having opened up anything except the FM tuner thus far, the only things I can see any problems with are: all of the power cords' insulation is crumbling; the little piles of dust underneath the chassis are probably what remains of the capacitors; both dial strings have rotted off; the insultation on the umbilicals that connect the various chassis has turned into a sort of sticky semi-liquid and there are quite a few different colors of corrosion on various metal surfaces some of which will be oxides or sulfates of cadmium.

On the bright side: I don't see any obviously bad tubes. However, many of the tubes I can see are of the metal-jacketed type so their status is unknown. Needless to say, I won't be plugging anything in anytime soon. I have some contacts at the Smithsonian who I hope can give me some suggestions for conservation on an item like this.

Carter: I think you'll find that the "2x4" is actually a 2"x4", not 1-3/4" x 3-1/2. Made when a 2x4 was a 2x4. That's some serious stuff there.

Sam Cogley said:

From the very few pictures I've seen of that model, the new FM tuner was the same design as the old one, just with the modernized FM band instead of the old one.

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After looking at some photos on the Radio Museum website, I was thinking this FM tuner might be the original GE JFM-90! Is it possible that it was modified to receive the new FM frequencies? It has the same tube compliment as the JFM-90: 5Y3, (2)6AB7, (2)6SK7, (2)6SJ7, a 7A4 & stubby little 6H6. The dial scale is a piece of cardboard glued AND scotch-taped over the original. I tried to get a peek underneath to see if the original dial scale markings were still there but the glue is still hanging tight after all those years.



It also appears that the tuner is mounted upside down in the K-1. The push-button pre-sets were designed to be mounted vertically and be pulled down and recess into the faceplate, moving in an arc. So in their current orientation the action is a little odd in that you push them away from you and they arc back and down. This is apparently how it came from Philharmonic since there is no evidence of it having been mounted any other way than I found it.













Unlike the JFM-90 pictured on the Radio Museum website, mine isn't marked as being a GE. This is the only evidence (other than it looking identical to a known JFM-90) that it was made by GE:



The multi-gang tuning capacitor has some really interesting looking details. Are these numbered ceramic-looking chips some kind of crystal?





Here's an extraordinary and very interesting survivor. This little piece of paper with the Armstrong patents, stapled to the back of the speaker enclosure has somehow survived all these years intact:



There were obviously other items stapled to the back but they have all unsurprisingly fallen or been ripped off.

Avery sure liked that round knob design, variations of it persisted on and off on Fisher products until approximately 1960.

The tuner is mounted in the normal orientation for that model - look at the article again, you can see the push buttons at the top.

It would appear that you have the original GE tuner, updated for the post-war FM band. Very interesting!