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A Visit With The Fishers

buglegirl said:
Carter,

What a awesome story. You bring vibrancy and life to history without straying from the facts and that is a gift my friend.

Frannie
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Thank you, Frannie - it's nice of you to say so. Sometimes the people behind the gear are more interesting than the gear itself. The more I learn about Avery Fisher, the more interesting he becomes. Did you know he also had his own aftermarket foreign auto parts business which he ran concurrently with Fisher Radio out of the Long Island plant? A. R. Fisher Products, Corp., I believe it was called. He sold items like high-performance Abarth exhaust systems for VWs way back in the early 1950s. I knew he was a foreign car aficionado and drove an Aston Martin but I never realized the depth of his interest. He seemed to have an ongoing problem with his hobbies getting out of hand and turning into corporations.

I neglected to mention in my previous posts that Chip put together a small collection of duplicate items from his father's records for me to add to my personal Fisher archive. I doubt I was able to fully convey just how much this meant to me. Some of the items are just beyond description amazingly rare - and that's not even considering whose house they came from.

Near the end of my visit, when I had a chance to chat with Chip, I asked him if I could have one of the many duplicate promotional 8X10 photos of his dad I had seen. He said to take as many of the duplicate items as I wanted. Stunned, I picked out a few of which there were at least three or more copies. I was tempted to take a whole bunch but decided to take only a few - my thinking being that the Fisher archive should remain as intact as possible for future researchers. For my purposes, copies are all that is really necessary.

walyfd said:
Would Julliard allow people to go through this trove of information?
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Yes, as far as I know, that's what research libraries are for. I asked Chip if there would be any restrictions on posting (which is technically a form of publishing) any of this material. As far as he knows there are not.

This is my favorite of the two Avery Fisher photos I got. I've been trying to think of an appropriate frame to put it in so it can hang on the wall behind my '59 Fisher Contemporary II in the living room. It has the year 1945 written on the back in pencil as well as notes about cropping and sizing. Perhaps it was THE photo sent to the printers when he was putting together the catalogs. He evidently liked this photo of himself since it is the portrait used in all the Fisher catalogs from late 1947 through 1959.

Avery Fisher would have been about 39 when this photo was taken. I especially like the touch of him holding a book - perhaps one of his own design. What do you see in his eyes and his expression? Can you see the stress of all the years building Philharmonic Radio only to loose it during the War? Can you see the anticipation and excitement of starting a new company - this time under his own name?

45AveryFisherw-Book.jpg


45AveryFisherw-BookX.jpg


45AveryFisherw-BookXX.jpg
 
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I'll definitely be planning a visit to the library as soon as the material is made available. Do you recall anything related to Serial Numbers--such as units built or assembled on a certain day? I'd like to learn as much about my Executive V as possible--such as all the weird changes that seemed to take place in 1961.

Also, what sort of Fisher equipment did Chip retain? I hope the family has something of the legacy.
 
That's too bad. Although growing up around it, the interest may not be there. To him, Avery was "Dad". I notice the same thing in the car hobby. Thankfully, people do realize the immeasurable contributions their family members have made and make it a point to have these items properly preserved. This information could have been lost long ago. Did Avery even know how his products would be thought of so many years later?

I noticed all the oxidized fingerprints on the back of the faceplate of my amp and wonder who they belong to. They're a part of the history of the piece.
 
Averys products still bring pleasure to many

Great post. I like the Fisher 400 from an engineering standpoint let alone great audio.

I like fixed bias, no capacitor in the cathode to color the sonics.

Known most stabile tube type FM multiplexer and FM tuner is best tube type in a receiver. No HD interference issues either.

Uses common 12AX7 preamp tubes with more availability of different manufactures for tube rolling plus are triodes vs pentodes. Nothing worst than being stuck with limited tube choice with pentodes in preamp positions.

SS rectifier with doubler circuit cancels noise by design like a PP circuit.

7868 tubes are a good choice like 6BQ5s providing great sonics at 25+ watts per channel.

High quality parts are in this Fisher. Looks like Mil-Spec parts.

Ceramic coupling capacitors very rarely fail or become leaky like in some other vintage electronics & somehow the ceramic caps do not have an edgy sonic signature. Must have been carefully specified at the factory.

The ERO coupling caps from Germany on the 7868 tube grids are about unbeatable in sonic performance. I never read of a failure either or at least not a common failure like other caps such as wax-paper, paper/foil, etc.

The FM tuning eye tube provides center tuning plus signal strength indication at the same time vs two meters or a selector switch with one meter. Eye tube also looks great.

Phase splitter balance pots are a nice touch too.

Finally, looks are as good as it gets IMO. Large dial with multi-colors lighted up including the 'music bird' logo- classy. Champagne color brush aluminum front panel is perfect hue. It looks high-end and somehow vintage & current at the same time IMO.

Yes, well engineered. :D
 
walyfd said:
I'll definitely be planning a visit to the library as soon as the material is made available. Do you recall anything related to Serial Numbers--such as units built or assembled on a certain day? I'd like to learn as much about my Executive V as possible--such as all the weird changes that seemed to take place in 1961.
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Unfortunately, there was much less material from the 1960s than from either earlier or later periods. I can think of two possible explanations: first, the possibility that company records from the period immediately preceding the sale of Fisher were conveyed to Emerson and subsequently Sanyo; second, the possibility that Avery Fisher was less emotionally invested in his company by the 1960s. After all, he had been at it since 1937. These records are his personal records of a lifetime devoted to music. From his perspective, the 1960s may have been less significant to him than they have become to Fisher collectors.

Avery Fisher turned 60 in 1966 which was about the same time he began having his lawyers look into the potential sale of his company. Perhaps he saw the writing on the wall for the future of the American electronics industry or perhaps he was just ready to move on to something else - I don't know. The one thing that struck me reading through the correspondence between him and his lawyers was that his primary focus was on making sure his key employees - the ones that helped made Fisher the great company it was - would share in the rewards of the sale.

I have heard that much of Fisher's corporate records - records that might contain the kind of production data you're looking for - were lost during the Northridge earthquake when Fisher/Sanyo's headquarters were located in Chatsworth, Ca. That's just hearsay but I have talked with one other Fisher researcher who has tried to run down that lead who also heard that story. So if you're looking for that kind of elusive Fisher production information from the 1960s you probably need to follow the Sanyo trail out to California - and perhaps back to Japan. I fear that, like most large corporations these days, Sanyo (now part of Panasonic) probably didn't really care much about the history of its various amalgamated companies. I think it is likely those records just don't exist anymore.
 
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Thanks for the heads up, Red. Still worth a day in the city to learn more about the company. Plus, for all the times I've been to Lincoln Center, I've never been in Avery Fisher Hall. I would like to see it before the major renovations begin.

I will try to follow up with the CA connection as well.

Thanks for all you've done for us Fisher Fanatics! Had you not been involved, we may have never known this trove was going to the Julliard library!

On a similar thought, the early RCA Orthophonics were registered with numbered plates. I've always wondered the history of my Mark I. I bet that information is lost forever as well...
 
TheRed1 said:
Unfortunately, there was much less material from the 1960s than from either earlier or later periods. I can think of two possible explanations: first, the possibility that company records from the period immediately preceding the sale of Fisher were conveyed to Emerson and subsequently Sanyo; second, the possibility that Avery Fisher was less emotionally invested in his company by the 1960s. After all, he had been at it since 1937. These records are his personal records of a lifetime devoted to music. From his perspective, the 1960s may have been less significant to him than they have become to Fisher collectors.

Avery Fisher turned 60 in 1966 which was about the same time he began having his lawyers look into the potential sale of his company. Perhaps he saw the writing on the wall for the future of the American electronics industry or perhaps he was just ready to move on to something else - I don't know. The one thing that struck me reading through the correspondence between him and his lawyers was that his primary focus was on making sure his key employees - the ones that helped made Fisher the great company it was - would share in the rewards of the sale.

I have heard that much of Fisher's corporate records - records that might contain the kind of production data you're looking for - were lost during the Northridge earthquake when Fisher/Sanyo's headquarters were located in Chatsworth, Ca. That's just hearsay but I have talked with one other Fisher researcher who has tried to run down that lead who also heard that story. So if you're looking for that kind of elusive Fisher production information from the 1960s you probably need to follow the Sanyo trail out to California - and perhaps back to Japan. I fear that, like most large corporations these days, Sanyo (now part of Panasonic) probably didn't really care much about the history of its various amalgamated companies. I think it is likely those records just don't exist anymore.
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Hi! :banana:
What a wonderful experience to have been fortunate enough to have had! :yes:
Those missing records and an earthquake sound similar to the almost same one regarding a lot of JBL's stuff. Daddy had JBL speakers too so we have run into the same sort of thing while researching his speakers, not much! :no: My brother has those! :(

I am curious, how did Mr. Fisher get his money, or did he start from scratch?
Thanks for the wonderful posts!

Phyllis
 
HVHiFI said:
This is one of the most amazing threads I have seen on AK. Thank you for sharing all this information. The photos are so amazing!
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+1

I really think you ought to consider writing a book about Avery and the history of Fisher Radio Corporation.
 
PShuff said:
I am curious, how did Mr. Fisher get his money, or did he start from scratch?
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The Philharmonic Radio Co., Avery Fisher's first company, appears to have be built from the ground up. It is my understanding it began as a partnership with Victor Brociner and the mysterious Stanley Bogart. I don't know who provided the start-up capital but Mr. Fisher appears to have been the senior partner.

Avery Fisher's family was pretty solidly middle-class. His father was in real estate and did well enough to send his children to college. However, on Avery Fisher's 1937 income tax form he claims his parents as dependents, so they weren't wealthy. His total income was about $2,700 which was $1,000 above the median income in the US for that year. I imagine that living in Manhattan was as expensive then, relatively speaking, as it is now. So that extra $1,000 above the median was probably absorbed quickly by living expenses, pushing him back down toward the mean. All of his 1937 income was wages, tips and salaries - none was from interest or dividends - so he doesn't appear to have had investments (though he could have had real estate assets through his father).

In many interviews he claimed that he never made more than $18/week at Dodd, Mead & Co. which was his day job from 1933 to 1943. That would only work out to about $1,000 a year though. He did say that he had to work at what amounted to two jobs at Dodd - as a book designer and managing advertising accounts - to add up to one proper job. Perhaps he meant that each job paid $18/week for a total of $36/week. That would certainly come much closer to adding up to the $2,700.

Of course Philharmonic was a tiny company to begin with. It doesn't appear to have grown much in the 1930s. In the 40s, by contrast, sales had almost tripled by the time WWII brought an abrupt end to civilian production. I suspect government contracts probably caused a rapid expansion of Philharmonic during the war as they did with many companies. The sudden need for capital to fund that expansion may have cost Avery Fisher the control of his company.

All I know for sure is that Avery Fisher sold his interest in Philharmonic near the end of 1943. At the same time he finally resigned from Dodd where he had continued to work while running Philharmonic. He stayed on at Philharmonic first as its President and then later as VP of Sales (after American Type Founders, Inc. consolidated Philharmonic with its Remote Control division). He resigned from Philharmonic at the end of the war.

I believe the proceeds from his sale of Philharmonic provided the capital he used to start his new company, the Fisher Radio Company, in late 1945. Based on a limited sampling of Fisher's earliest books, Avery Fisher began this new venture with about $50,000 start-up capital. That's a pretty impressive sum considering just how tiny Philharmonic was in the 1930s.
 
Red -- Unless I missed it in your other numerous and informative posts, my question is how much actual technical expertise did Avery have with electronics? You've documented so well his musical capabilities and love of accurately produced music through high quality equipment -- and the German connection for engineers after the war. Is this a case where he may have had a good basic knowledge, but was not specifically (or particularly) schooled on the technical (i.e. engineering) side of his products? Or was he technically involved early on, but as the company grew, ultimately left that to others? I get the idea that this was the case, so that at its peak, Fisher surrounding himself with the very best engineers he could get, leaving him able then to manage the day to day affairs of the company.

Any insight on this would be appreciated!

Dave
 
Dave, your assessment of Mr. Fisher's technical abilities is fairly accurate. He never billed himself as an engineer but his level of understanding was quite advanced. He often characterized his skills as a violinist as those of an advanced amateur. That's probably an apt description of his level as a radio and audio technician.

His real genius was how he ran his businesses. He was also a gifted salesman. As a hobbyist hunting the shops on Radio Row in the 1930s, he was able to duplicate the type of sound systems heard in movie theaters by re-purposing RCA Photophone amplifiers and adapting Western Electric speaker systems for use in his home. When he went into business to produce such systems for his well heeled New York neighbors, he had the good judgement to partner up with Victor Brociner and to pay for the consulting services of William N. Weeden.

Later, when he rebooted his company after WWII as Fisher Radio, he had George Maerkle as his VP of engineering. George was a self-taught engineer with little or no formal training who, nevertheless, was an extraordinary designer with a special talent for tuners. Len Feldman was brought in during the 1950s and worked on some of the great Fisher amps of that era. Then in the late 1950s began the era of Fred Mergner and the "Dutchmen" which produced the stereo gear most of us are familiar with.

I think your suggestion that Avery Fisher was more involved with the engineering design work at Philharmonic and in the early years of Fisher is almost certainly the case. As the company grew Mr. Fisher's work overseeing its expanding operations would have naturally reduced the time he had available to spend with his engineering team. I think there is pretty good evidence that he trusted and had a good relationship with his engineers - especially during the Mergner era. Even so, Avery Fisher was a hands-on kind of manager with a great deal of personal interest in his products. We are still benefiting from his efforts to maintain the high level of quality associated with the Fisher brand.
 
Thanks so much Red. Some of the most successful companies don't succeed because the person at the top knows every technical aspect of what they produce, but because they have the ability to put together the best team of folks, and then manage them to efficiently produce the best products and marketing for it. Clearly, Fisher was that man, and what a legacy he left. Thanks again for all your hard work to make all of this information available. It really is fascinating!

Dave
 
Hiya,

I think Avery's greatest contribution was "Accurate Marketing" of products and also understanding the exploding changing environment that was audio in the 50's and 60's.

So much of history is riddled with false promises and out of touch products. Fisher equipment of that era was very honest and also very much in touch.

We don't see this very much at all.

Latest examples would be Steve Jobs at Apple for example.

Visionaries don't grow on trees.

Frannie
 
This was evidently a proposal for a Fisher PR film concocted by Sanyo and poorly translated into English. One can only guess at Mr. Fisher's response when this landed on his desk. There are some handwritten corrections but the language remains very choppy and often nearly incomprehensible. I have made some changes to improve readability which I have shown in brackets. The sections in italics were designated as narration.

I am especially curious as to what an "SP" record was. Perhaps they were referring to 78s - perhaps SP was "Short Playing" as opposed to "Long Playing". I don't even have a guess as to what "Chrysler" was a reference to. There was a big question mark scrawled next to that line. Maybe someone back at Sanyo was confusing Chrysler with Columbia as a record label - who knows?

I do have to admit that I am impressed that someone at Sanyo actually took the time to do some research into Fisher's history. Yes, it is contrived but it is also essentially accurate.

THE SOUND CARRIED BY A SWALLOW

Prologue

  • A swallow flies and perches on a telephone wire. Then another swallow,....then another....five swallows, in all, perch on five wires like musical notes on staff notation. One flies away from the wire...(freeze-picture)

  • A soft spring-light comes from the horizon of the sea.....(with spring-time music).

  • "Fisher brings beautiful music."

  • Title to appear: “The Sound Carried By A Swallow”
Creation Of Music

  • Inside Smithsonian Museum (deserted). Camera closes into Fisher Hi-Fi receiver (1st generation model).

  • Light hits timer [perhaps tuner?] and speaker.
One of the 1st Hi-Fi receivers in the world displayed at Smithsonian Museum, Washington, D.C. The year is 1937...this is the 1st Swallow Mark for Fisher.

  • Manhattan view

  • [Avery] Fisher Hall view

  • Mr. Avery Fisher playing in a string-quartet at New York Philharmony.

  • Mr. Fisher finishes his play and quotes:
Music is my life. Good music is born from good musician. For this reason I have worked hard for good music to present to the world....working at this Fisher-Hall, and helping New York Philharmony. This hall is equal or better than [Carnegie] Hall. That is how a good music is born. But any good music disappears in acoustic instantaneously when played. How splendid it would be if the music could be replayed with high fidelity! This is the dream I always carried. The [gramophone] in the 1930’s was not the answer to my dream. So I ventured to make an equipment to reproduce sound of [high fidelity].

  • View of Fisher laboratory and its engineers.
I recruited electronic and acoustical engineers from all over the world to accomplish my dream. Not only from U.S.A. but from West Germany, Great Britain, France and even from Russia.

  • A mother swallow brings food to the nest to feed [her] young ones.
I have worked hard to make my venture grow.

  • One of the early engineers talks about the difficult time years ago.
We were using vacuum tubes then. We had to work hard to get the right amplifier, tuner, speaker, etc., to make a perfect system. We scrapped many units to achieve our goal.

  • Mr. Fisher speaks:
And then, we came out with the right system in 1937. I was proud of it.

  • 1st Fisher system playing an SP record....Chrysler. [I have no idea.]
One of the famous performers at that time. Through the record in a SP, it sounded like a concert studio in my house. Many people [appreciated] the sound and said it was like a melody carried by a swallow.

  • Young swallows leave the nest with their mother.
Tradition Of Sound

  • The Fisher family performing a musical concert at home....daughter playing piano, son and grandchildren playing violins.
Everyone in our family loves music. It is a nice way for a family to get together. I have worked on many new models since then. A new epoch was born with the advent of semi-conductors. But my thinking does not change. I want people to enjoy good music.

  • New lines of Fisher Stereo Products.

  • New development-research of Fisher Products.
The progress and changes for audio products is fast, and the market competitive. It was an excellent decision to tie-up with Sanyo management and production for the name “Fisher” to continue.

  • Fisher’s Chatsworth Headquarters.

  • Fisher’s Milroy Factory.

  • Speaker Production.

  • Engineers and Development.

  • Amplifier Production At Tokyo-Sanyo.
The creation of true hi-fi sound by Fisher since 1937. And the manufacturing and marketing facilities of Sanyo throughout the world. This combination has given strength to the tradition of Fisher.

  • Fisher Europe Hi-Fi Company in Munich.

  • Fisher Plant in Germany.

  • Production of VCR.
Fisher has expanded its activities into video products. Not only the [high fidelity] of sound by the performer, but the realism of image and action by the performer are accomplished.

Epilogue

  • VCR, Compact-Disk Player of Fisher.

  • New York Philharmony starts its performance.

  • Mr. Fisher auditing [?] the performance.

  • The conductor and [his] people. (orchestra)

  • The sky[line?] of Manhattan.

  • Fisher’s Swallow Mark.
Good music never dies. Beautiful sound remains forever.

- End -
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Carter,

In 1937 (I am assuming reading that is the context of the era he was listening to that early Philharmonic) we would have had 78 speed and "SP" (Standard Play)

It (SP) was commonly use to denote 78's to differentiate between the 50's designation for 33 and a third speed "LP"

So I think the SP designation is actually correct.

Frannie
 
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Carter -- Another question (or two) if I may: Was there any specific reason for the changing of the guard so to speak from the Maerkle/Feldman period to the Mergner/Dutchmen period -- other than just general attrition? That clearly represents a major shift in the engineering thinking for Fisher products, and I'm wondering if it was a reactive or proactive move on Fisher's part.

Also, we know that Brociner started his own product line, so he obviously broke away from Fisher at some point, but it would be interesting to know what happened to Maerkle and Feldman. Finally, I am not familiar at all with Mr. Weeden (at least by name anyway). Is there a cliff notes version of what his consulting was for Fisher, how long he was associated with him, and what became of him at all?

This stuff is so fascinating, but it's all your fault: You're the one that opened the can of worms!!:):)

Dave
 
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