Scott serial numbers

[Kent King]

As most of you know, I've been gathering and analyzing Scott serial numbers for over 20 years. I have a couple requests....first, if you haven't sent me your serial numbers, please do. Also...if any of you have a confirmed date for a set/serial number, please send me that. There is a warranty tag on ebay at the moment, these are great, since they have the date and serial number on them. A letter with a date is also good confirmation. I would greatly appreciate any info you fellows can provide. I'll post more about serial numbers here in the future.

Kent

[John Chidgey]

[Thomas Nickel]

Hello Kent,

my  AM&FM Phantom has  the sn EE289. It´s an early version with a separate FM chassis and 15" speaker.

Thomas

[Kent King]

Thank you, that is a new number for the list. The separate FM line is fairly unusual, you've got a very nice set there!

Kent

Thomas Nickel said:

Hello Kent,

my  AM&FM Phantom has  the sn EE289. It´s an early version with a separate FM chassis and 15" speaker.

Thomas

[Kent King]

Dates are never exact, but there is one other serial number with a good date in this series - based on that, I'd estimate the 3rd or 4th quarter of 1941 - just before Pearl Harbor...

John Chidgey said:

Kent, would you by chance have an approximate build date for this S/N?

[Thomas Nickel]

It seems, the serial number prefix was changed from SS to EE. Is there any information about these different prefixes?

On the picture you see the two AM- and FM blocks. The radio is housed in a Wellington cabinet. The German preowner got the device from a dealer in Paris, many years ago. Maybe an American officer took it with him to France at the end of WW2. It isn´t an European version (115 V only) and there were no European fm stations at this thime.

Thomas

Kent King said:

Thank you, that is a new number for the list. The separate FM line is fairly unusual, you've got a very nice set there!

Kent

Thomas Nickel said:

Hello Kent,

my  AM&FM Phantom has  the sn EE289. It´s an early version with a separate FM chassis and 15" speaker.

Thomas

[Kent King]

I have not seen a plate like this one, where it may have been altered. The SS prefix is all Phantom sets, I don't have any dates in the sequence to narrow down a date there. The EE prefix - Phantoms begin at 250, based on dates I have there, this would be a 1940 set, which fits with it being an early "bolt on" FM chassis. 

The history of it is really unique - as you said, FM wasn't in use in Europe pre-war, so finding it there is highly unusual. Do you have history back to the beginning or is Paris the start of the history? If so, I might have been sent over after the war for some reason...

Kent

Thomas Nickel said:

It seems, the serial number prefix was changed from SS to EE. Is there any information about these different prefixes?

On the picture you see the two AM- and FM blocks. The radio is housed in a Wellington cabinet. The German preowner got the device from a dealer in Paris, many years ago. Maybe an American officer took it with him to France at the end of WW2. It isn´t an European version (115 V only) and there were no European fm stations at this thime.

Thomas

Kent King said:

Thank you, that is a new number for the list. The separate FM line is fairly unusual, you've got a very nice set there!

Kent

Thomas Nickel said:

Hello Kent,

my  AM&FM Phantom has  the sn EE289. It´s an early version with a separate FM chassis and 15" speaker.

Thomas

[Norman S Braithwaite]

It is quite understandable that an owner in Germany would want the serial number starting with "SS" to be reallocated.

Norman

[Thomas Nickel]

Norman, can you explain, what you mean?

Thomas

[Norman S Braithwaite]

Most people in Germany after WWII wanted no association with or reminder of the Schutzstaffel aka SS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzstaffel

Norman

[Thomas Nickel]

We in Germany should newer forget the suffering Germans and the SS had brought over the world.

But falsification of a serial number  starting with SS - I cannot imagine that.

Please, compare with an actual ebay Phantom offer of an American dealer

Thomas

[Kent King]

Well, the one part of this mystery that intriques me is that the EE shape and format exactly match between these two examples... This implies that the serial number tag was restamped by Scott, the match of the letters seems too good. So going back to my earlier comment, SS was all Phantoms, EE was partly Phantoms - maybe a tag was reused? I do not have an SS-289 on record, but it should/could exist in that series. Could it have been a different pair of letters? KK is another all Phantom prefix...I'm truly puzzled on this, it could really throw a wrench into the serial number analysis...

Kent

[Norman S Braithwaite]

I suspect that the German customer requested a different serial number upon learning of the first.

Norman