From my experience, the type 5V is the most common by far. I rarely see the other A-K variants of this driver. The 5V turn up moderately often on eBay and sell for 5 to 50 bux. They're probably the most in demand by people who collect both radios and phonos as they are a good crossover collectible. These were most popular in the period before about 1925. I suspect that not many of the later ones designed to fit the orthophonic phonos were sold due to the fact that radio speaker technology was improving very rapidly with the introduction of the Kellogg dynamic speaker in 1925. By 1929 the radios sets complete with built-in speakers were sounding better than the acoustic phonos and the reverse adapter become popular - an electric pickup that could be fitted to an acoustic tonearm and which was wired into your radio so that you could play records thru your radio!
Greg Bogantz ----- Original Message ----- From: "ny victrolaman" <[email protected]> To: "Antique Phonograph List" <phono-l at oldcrank.org> Sent: Wednesday, June 04, 2008 3:03 PM Subject: Re: [Phono-L] What is this? Atwater Kent Type 5V phonographattachment > 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 >> > _______________________________________________ > Phono-L mailing list > http://phono-l.oldcrank.org
