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So does anyone know about this?
I am an avid radio collector also so I just had to have this...
I was also given the reproducer I needed from a friend. Yay!
Last I found a Victrola tonearm.

From The Talking Machine World -- March 15, 1920:
(FROM: https://archive.org/stream/talkingmachi ... 3/mode/2up )

...one of many off brand machines produced during the teens and twenties. "Radio" was the big high tech buzzword at the time, so they probably slapped that name onto their reproducers to capitalize on its growing popularity.

OrthoFan

I wonder if that's the same "Crippen" company that made die-cast & glass fuel sediment bowl filters for small gasoline engines...

Thats GREAT!
Thanks for the neat picture

I dont know about the Crippen relation though...

Kirk

Not to drag your thread way off topic, here is a picture of said sediment-bowl... they are usually found on gasoline-powered equipment, with divorced fuel-tank, and float-type carb: stuff powered by larger (6 HP & up ) Briggs, Kohler, Wisconsin engines, etc.

The other big manufacturer of these little shut-off/sediment bowls was Tillotson, who also made carburetors. Tillotson was in Toledo, O, and Willys-Overland (Jeep) was a big customer.

Tillotson bowls are recognized by a wire bail under the glass bowl, Crippen used the flat-strap, and were about half the size of the Tillotson.

Anyone who has run a classic Gravely two-wheel walk-behind tractor has probably seen the Tillotson bowls, but Gravely also used Crippen bowls.

Both firms specialized in die-casting of intricate parts, so that makes me think that the Crippen who made the "Radio" reproducer also made the sediment bowls.

( How's that for arcane minutae ? )

De Soto Frank wrote:Not to drag your thread way off topic, here is a picture of said sediment-bowl... they are usually found on gasoline-powered equipment, with divorced fuel-tank, and float-type carb: stuff powered by larger (6 HP & up ) Briggs, Kohler, Wisconsin engines, etc.

The other big manufacturer of these little shut-off/sediment bowls was Tillotson, who also made carburetors. Tillotson was in Toledo, O, and Willys-Overland (Jeep) was a big customer.

Tillotson bowls are recognized by a wire bail under the glass bowl, Crippen used the flat-strap, and were about half the size of the Tillotson.

Anyone who has run a classic Gravely two-wheel walk-behind tractor has probably seen the Tillotson bowls, but Gravely also used Crippen bowls.

Both firms specialized in die-casting of intricate parts, so that makes me think that the Crippen who made the "Radio" reproducer also made the sediment bowls.

( How's that for arcane minutae ? )

To go even further off topic, when I was a lad we lived in a big house on an acre lot. My dad bought a Gravely with the "drag behind" seat for cutting the grass. He decided that was MY job. I should be in therapy because that scarred me for life.

I never knew if it had a Crippen or Tillotson or ANY sediment bowl because I did not care and I still don't.

Georg,

I too, was inculcated in the ways of Gravely from an early age... from about 5 years on, I mowed about 3 acres with Dad's walk-behind, riding the tag-along sulky. The most important thing ( aside from not getting killed ) was no to stall the engine in heavy grass, because then I'd have to walk back and find Dad to start it again... strap starter, and I didn't have enough weight / strength to pull that beast over.

I grew to love them, and in HS had a small lawn-mowing business, using a couple of 1940's Gravely's that an uncle had given me, lugging them around in my Grandad's 1954 Chevy ¾ ton pick-up. (This was circa 1984)

There doesn't seem to be any middle ground with Gravely - folks either LOVE them, or HATE them, either way with a passion.


Eventually, I found a "Custom Convertible" from 1964, with the "Swiftmatic" two-speed axle, and an electric starter ... and many of the accessory toys...

I live in a city residential street, and an 18" Lawn-Boy is more than enough to take care of my little patch of grass, but I still love my Gravelys, and will probably hang onto them until I croak.

With all the myriad attachments made & sold for the Gravely tractor, I'm surprised a phonograph powered from the power-takeoff wasn't among them...