The Victor-Victrola Page
R-52
RARITY: ¤¤ VALUE: ¤
When
radio became the rage in 1924-1925, the Victor Talking Machine Company was
caught totally unprepared, and sales of old-style phonographs tanked. So to
get back into the consumer market, Victor relied on a licensing agreement
with RCA to design and produce radios for their radio/phonograph combination
models. This agreement lasted for nearly 5 years. But understandably, Victor did not want to depend on an outside
supplier for a critical element of their products, so they designed and
manufactured their own "Microsynchronous" radio, which proved to be one of
the top-performing sets of 1929.
The
R-52 was a Microsynchronous radio-only set (without phonograph),
and was one of the final products introduced by Victor in the summer of
1929, just prior to the time that the company was purchased by RCA.
It was functionally identical to Victor's less expensive
R-32 model, which had been launched just a few months earlier, but the
R-52 featured a larger, taller, and more detailed cabinet with hinged doors
on the front to hide the controls. The R-52 also shared the same
Microsychronous radio
with the RE-45. the RE-75
and several other models; but unlike those sets, it did not have a
phonograph integrated into the cabinet.
Approximately 35,000 R-52's were made before production was discontinued
toward the end of the year. The list price was set at $215.00, which equates
to about $3,200.00 in today's money. Tubes were not included in this price.
The buyer had a choice of a walnut or mahogany veneer with a blended lacquer
finish. Since the impact of The Depression was being strongly felt at the
end of 1929, many of these models remained unsold by dealers, who continued
to market them into the early 1930's at a significant discount off the list price.
The high cost of restoration of these early
radios limits the interest of many collectors today.
Do you own an R-52? Please take a moment and enter some basic information about your machine into the collector's database by clicking here. No personal information is required.
