EH Scott Radio Enthusiasts

The Fine Things are Always Hand Made

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

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At the time I had been looking for an old radio with shortwave bands on it. When I turned that Scott around and saw the inside I almost fainted. Every old radio I had looked at up until then had this tiny chassis in a mostly empty cabinet. I knew immediately that the Scott was something very special.

E. H. Scott designed his radios to be physically quite sturdy compared to many others. I measured the thickness of the chassis metal on my 800B and it is .075 inches thick. He also used large volume enclosures for the RF and IF coils in his products. It turns out that larger containers allow greater Q in coils and transformers. There was not as much knowledge of how to make high Q coils and transformers with ferrite materials then. Ferrites improved over time until smaller transformers could be made with decent performance. We have some great examples of AM and SW receivers from his work in the 1930s and into the 1940s. He helped promote FM reception beginning in the late 1930s and had excellent designs for that purpose very early. From the very beginning he used 4 IF circuits in the FM IF, two gain stages and two limiters. Many others made do with only two or three FM IF stages.

Superior design and superior performance were the results of the research and development in E. H. Scott laboratories. Careful construction, assembly and alignment were used to produce an excellent range of models and products.

Joe

I'm having so much fun restoring and getting my fingers on my AM/FM Philharmonic that I'm reluctant to slide the main chassis back into the cabinet and out of site. Somebody said the E.H. Scott radios were the Dusenberg/Cord/Auburns of radio during that period. Some collectors might avoid the AM/FM Philharmonics because the old FM still has to be dealed with during restoration. But I prefer this model because the AM section is a little more refined with the treble control separate from the selectivity control. The audio path is cleaner without the 60Hz and 10KHz notch filters and no loudness compensation. The optional Jensen three speaker system sounds better than the older Magnavox speaker and earlier tweeters (my opinion). The sound of this radio in the Georgian cabinet is outstanding.

Tom

I got my Philly from the man who built my 1935 Cord -- Glenn Pray of Broken Arrow, OK. The Philly is in a Gothic Grande cabinet with early record changer. Apparently it is an early run Philly because it uses 83 rectifiers instead of 80s.

Great story, Ted! Thanks. I wonder how many current Scott owners on this site received their radios from the original owners?

Actually, Glenn had passed on and I bought it from the estate. A few moths later I bought the Auburn from the same people.

Mine was just sitting on the attic floor at Grandmother's house in Ann Arbor. No cabinet. Big green dial, amp and 15 inch speaker. Very nice chrome. It played. I was about 14 so this was about 1958. Belonged to mother's cousin. As their boys had upgraded to stereo at college, they let me take it home. This pointer dial Philharmonic became the start of my Scott collection and is now in a seldom seen upsized Tasman I recently restored  for it. Took me a long time to locate control escutcheons, dial bezel, and tweeters for it.

Incidentally, I have never seen the 83 rectifier equipped amp as they soon gave way to 5Z3's. The additional two controls of the 1940-41 FM/AM Stradivarius BOL dial Philharmonic Tom mentions are also on the Standard AM only Philharmonics at the same time (I now have one to restore).

HI Kent,

5 knob early AW23 serial number J-630. You may find this serial to be duplicate. 

Jeff

Mr. King,

I can't recall if I gave you K492, which is a five knob AW23.  It most likely has been accounted for since it had been in the possession of Joe Koester for the last 20 years.

Why don't you collect the serial numbers of power supplies.  They often do not match, but doesn't that odd situation allow you to identify other receivers, since there had to have been a matching receiver built, and that the surviving power supply chassis type would identify the missing receiver? 

David

 

David:  There was not necessarily a matching tuner chassis for each power amplifier chassis serial number.  Very few if any complete original Scott sets have the same serial number on both chassis.  Serial numbers for tuners and for power amplifiers were assigned separately and likely recorded on separate charts although sales records (long lost) likely identified both the serial number of the tuner and power amplifier for each purchase.

Norman

Norman: The pencil serial number is hard for me to understand.  Why even have a serial number if it does not match the receiver?  Do all of the serial numbers on the receiver chassis bottom covers match the receivers?  My chassis bottom cover has the serial number written on the inside surface just like the PS.

David:  I am sure that the serial numbers were used for quality control as well as customer service.  I am also certain that separate assembly lines were employed for the tuner chassis and power amplifier chassis and that they were constructed in separate areas within the building.  Hence differing serial numbers for tuner chassis and power amplifier chassis.  It is likely that blocks of serial numbers were assigned to supervisors and/or final inspectors of the chassis.  Not all Scott chassis have the serial number written on the bottom cover plate.  Hence I suspect that the serial number was written on the bottom plate when the chassis was returned to the lab or to an authorized service facility for service and that the serial number was added simply to make sure the correct bottom plate was replaced.

Norman

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