Restoration of an Edison C-4 Radio Phonograph

[HisMastersVoice]

Cool ad, thanks Jim! It's hard to believe this thing was todays equivalent of about $4000.

[marcapra]

At first I thought $4000 for a C-4 Edison radio/phono!!! That can't be right. So I checked and he's right! The original cost of the the C-4 in 1929 was $295. If you go to this inflation calculator at http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm you will see that $295 equaled $3,960.95 today! And since I don't think tubes were included, it would be about $4000!!!

[HisMastersVoice]

At first I thought $4000 for a C-4 Edison radio/phono!!! That can't be right. So I checked and he's right! The original cost of the the C-4 in 1929 was $295. If you go to this inflation calculator at http://www.dollartimes.com/calculators/inflation.htm you will see that $295 equaled $3,960.95 today! And since I don't think tubes were included, it would be about $4000!!!

It's no wonder it didn't sell well, especially near the end of '29. They were certainly accurate in using the term "investment"

[HisMastersVoice]

Does anyone know where I can find the J bolts that hold down the chassis? I'm missing a couple of them. I need 2 knobs as well but I imagine those will be harder if not impossible to locate.

Knobs and a few of the missing J bolts have been acquired, thanks to Skihawx!


Last night I tested the motor and it appears to be working, though quite noisy. I plan to disassemble it soon and give it a throughout cleaning and lubrication.

[HisMastersVoice]

Well, it's finally up and running! I picked up the chassis from ChuckA at the Stanton Auction who did a wonderful job restoring it. Here are some "after" photos:

Everything put back together, the cabinet needs some attention, but for now I'm going to leave it "original" and just enjoy playing it for a while.

The pickup was rebuilt by George Epple in Maryland

Replaced the missing knobs, courtesy of Skihawx and the missing knob inserts made by a friend who is great at woodworking.

The chassis: cleaned, rewired, new tubes, capacitors, etc. Motor cleaned and lubricated.

Re-coned speaker and 1 new power transformer, since the original had unfortunately failed.

[HisMastersVoice]

Regarding the grille cloth... I based my replacement color on the section of the original that was not faded, which was a burgundy color. Someone mentioned that they thought these all had a gold grille cloth. Can anyone confirm? Was this the original or was it replaced a long time ago with an incorrect color cloth?

[ChuckA]

Brandon,

Forgot to mention, the black wire from the motor needs to be connected to the radio chassis. Just loosen one of the rear screws and connect it there. It helps to eliminate some induced hum from the motor.

I'll try to go and look for that missing spindle on my parts unit this weekend.

Chuck

[HisMastersVoice]

Thanks, Chuck. I did figure the black wire out after I took the photos and it is connected to the chassis now.

[De Soto Frank]

Terrific machine.... please post some video of it in operation, if you can...


I have a gutted cabinet for an Edison console radio that I rescued from the curb, but the guts were already long-gone...

[HisMastersVoice]

Thanks! I'll try to do a video in the next couple of days.