EH Scott Radio Enthusiasts

The Fine Things are Always Hand Made

This morning while searching eBay for Fisher audio equipment I noticed an E H Scott 800B listed as a Fisher from the 1950s. There were only two pictures of the unit in a blonde cabinet. I don't know if it is complete with the original speaker and the power supply chassis or not. There is a record changer compartment, but no picture showed the changer drawer pulled out.

I wrote the seller and identified the unit as an E H Scott 800B, so it may soon be relisted under the correct name.

Joe

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I just checked again and it is now listed as being and E H Scott 800B fisher stereo! See:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/1950s-EH-Scott-800B-fisher-stereo-/1828452...

The person listing this lives in San Francisco, CA and just shows one picture now. No more detail is mentioned, so evidently they do not understand that stereo receivers did not exist when this product was produced.

The picture is not very good, but it does appear to be in good shape, but better pictures would need to be posted or requested in order to get a good idea of what kind of condition the chassis and the rest of the cabinet is in.

Joe

Technically the 800B is a product of Scott Radio Laboratories, not E.H. Scott Radio Laboratories. The cabinet is a Chippendale that should have dark red mahogony finish. The drawer pulls are also incorrect.

Norman

Norman, you are right. I had not thought that far ahead. It would be interesting to learn if someone had it refinished or if it was simply painted. I have doubts that anyone could take a red mahogany finished cabinet and change it to the bleached wood appearance of the blond finish popular at the time these were made. It probably would have been less expensive to have a new cabinet made. And yes, the drawer pulls are not typical of those that appeared on the Chippendale cabinets. The other 800B units I have seen in a blonde finish were a Moderne design different than Chippendale. If this is indeed a painted cabinet that was originally red mahogany, it would probably ruin the value of the cabinet. It might still be worth something for the speaker and the two chassis if everything is intact and could be restored.

A couple of years ago I worked on an early 1940s Silvertone radio for a friend's wife. Someone in the family had painted over the entire original wood cabinet thinking to improve its looks. Instead it destroyed the original beauty of the wood finish. I finished repairing the radio chassis as best I could and just shook my head at the poor cabinet it was in. Since someone in the family did the paint job on it that was probably also a family memory, so it was best left as it was.

Joe

Back when bleached cabinets were popular it would not have been very costly to refinish the console. Powerful and effective bleaching agents were available at the time that are no longer available due to substantial safety concerns.

Norman

I suppose that either the customer themselves or the dealer could have had this done then. Yes there were many chemicals available then that are banned now including carbon tetrachloride. I know of one woman in Dallas who had her carpets cleaned with the carbon tetrachloride and drank some liquor before going to bed. The combination from the fumes of the chemical cleaning compound and the alcohol she drank killed her. Some of the chemicals then were quite dangerous as you said.

It might be possible today to take such a cabinet and have it taken back to red mahogany and have a true Chippendale cabinet again. If any veneer would have to be replaced it is still possible to get book-matched veneer from various sources today. That would not be something I would want to undertake myself. I would just hire a cabinet maker to do the work. I have done some small area replacements to bring back damaged cabinets, but do not have the skill or equipment to do a full-on cabinet refinishing or replacement of large veneer surfaces. I will leave that to the experts.

I just finished repairing the walnut finish cabinet for a Fisher FM-200-B that I acquired from eBay. It was not packed well and the cabinet arrived broken apart. I managed to put it back together and had to use some iron-on walnut veneer to cover part of the front trim where a piece had to be fitted and glued to take care of a missing piece. Even that was not a trivial task. Matching the original stain color required some experimentation. I wound up using both some walnut stain and some red mahogany stain to get it to match the rest of the cabinet.

Joe

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