No comments about Zenith TRANS-OCEANIC: The Royalty of Radios.

5 comments about Old Time Radios! Restoration and Repair.

1. I have been interested in and tinkered with electronics since I was a boy, but I didn't have the knowledge to do any involved repairs. Over the years my family and I have had tube radios that worked fine at one time, then started to hum, with the humming eventually getting so bad it drowned out everything else. I remembered my folks taking one of these sets to a radio/TV repairman when I was a kid and being told it wasn't worth fixing. For years I have wanted to find out what caused this and maybe fix those radios. Some 30 years later I spied this book, bought it, and found out what all that humming was caused by. I have proceeded to fix 3 of those old radios that now work like new, for only a few dollars in parts! This book taught me everything I needed to know to do it. I couldn't be more pleased. I had to re-read some sections a few times to "get it", but the info I needed was all there. I can't recommend this book highly enough!!



2. If you want a book on how tube radios work, this is a great book. If you want to know how to actually restore radios, not so good.



3. Very thorough. This is a good book if you want to restore old radios. Gives a good explanation of history, and how the tubes and circuits work. There is a good section on troublshooting and repair. The only complaint is that the author goes into great detail to explain how the circuits are effected using equations in calculus ect. It is just a bit much for the novice to grasp. Otherwise a good book on old radios.



4. This book is OK and I'm glad I bought it, but the author spends too much time on the theory and history of antique radios. Only about 1/3rd of the book is devoted to troubleshooting, and even that part is a little bit sketchy. I think a person can find better troubleshooting manuals, tube manuals, and other interesting literature for free online if you just spend a few minutes searching. It has been my experience that the New Jersey Antique Radio Club is a great resource.
   
   Mr. Carr wrote a great book, but you can do better online.



5. What a waste of money! All the hype for this book lead me to believe this was a book that would be valuable to a beginner in the restoration of antique radios. I should have ignored the positive posts that were obviously posted by close members of the author's immediate family. If one is into theory, this is probably about as good as it gets. If one is looking for basic restoration help, fugeddabowdit!

5 comments about Collector's Guide to Antique Radios: Identifcation and Values (Collector's Guide to Antique Radios).

1. Collector's Guide to Antique Radios: Identifcation and Values (Collector's Guide to Antique Radios)
   This book is a valuable reference for me as I look for bargains in antique radios.



2. I really enjoyed the book and have taken it along on radio hunting trips. It gives you a place to start but there are a surprising number of radios that are not in the book. Still, it has provided me a good basis for valuation and a real education of the universe of antique radios. Thanks.



3. Collectors who enjoy antique radios and specialty libraries catering to specialty collectors will have to have the updated 7th edition to Collector's Guide to Antique Radios by John Slusser: it packs in color photos of each antique to accompany the very latest values, organizes chapters by makers for quick and easy consultation, and includes plenty of reference material perfect for identifying the radios and their values.



4. This guide gives a good overview of old radios. I agree with other readers that there are some iconic radios that should have been pictured.
   However I can understand that the content had to be limited to make the book affordable. Myself, I would pay $60 for a larger book that had 4 times the content. Some short history on the manufacturers would have been nice too. On the positive side, this book has made me more aware of the variety of radios that were made. I can now better decide what I want to buy. The prices should only be used as relative value gauge.



5. This is the place to begin. Covers technical background, history, manufacturers and models. Price information is useful. Many illustrations in color. Covers battery and electric sets from 1920's
   through the 1950's. Does NOT include Crystal Radios. An EXCELLENT
   value. A ready reference for beginner to intermediate collector and enthusiast. Literally thousands of radios and many manufacturers covered. I could detect no gaps or ommisions. This is a catalog but well worth having on bookshelf as reference. Interesting commentary and fun to read. Well-written and informative.

5 comments about The All-American Five Radio: Understanding and Restoring Transformerless Radios of the 1940'S, 50'S, and 60's.

1. This book covers fundamental electronics with excellent schematic and pictorial diagrams to help the reader understand how tube radio components work. I especially liked the explanations of each stage from power supply through detector and audio amplifier, and the descriptions of the functional elements of each tube. There are many useful tips for selecting and installing replacement parts which I highlighted for future reference. Yes, there are more typos than normal but that is a minor nuisance which doesn't reduce the value of the content.



2. This book is just what I needed, just getting started in tube radio repair. It covers basic radio funamentals and electronics, in an easy to read and understand format. Even though it only covers one peticular radio, I feel I can apply it to any other radio. I recommend it to anyone with moderate electronic background.



3. Just received 'The All-American Five Radio'.
   This book is riddled with Typos, not just missing a letter here or there,
   but calling the term Pi...pie, calling a Sine wave...a Sign wave, etc.
   In the very first chapter there is an equation demonstrating Ohms Law,
   the answer given is wrong. The book gives the answer 135 by multiplication, the answer is 60 by Division! The equation just below it has the right answer but the fraction has the values in the wrong position. This on just a brief look at the book so far. Some of the definitions in the back are wrong or bad.
   Not sure what to trust in this book. The concept is good; could have been better written for a learning manual, especially about electric and Radio.



4. this book is excellent for the beginner - i have learned a lot from this book. highly recommended for the novice repairman.



5. Where was this book when I got started?!! Probably the best "first book" for anyone interested in repairing old radios--or just learning about how they work. The book is limited to the All American 5 Superhet radio just as the title says and therefore is highly focused on these radios which make up the bulk of the vintage radios out there today. Too many books try to discuss every old radio type from old TRFs to multi-band consoles and become very tedious and often too general for anything but entertainment. This book gives you just what you need to know (and no more) to get an old AA5 radio to work. You don't get bogged down in complex theory and useless details and history. With this book, a dead AA5 radio, and just a few tools which the author lists, almost anyone with any kind of mechanical ability can have that radio working in no time. Of course much of what you will have learned in this book can be applied to more complex radios as well, since all superhets operate in basically the same way.

2 comments about Classic 80s Home Video Games: Identification & Value Guide.

1. The one thing in this book's favor is its price, which renders criticism of it somewhat moot. At a glance, the guide offers relatively comprehensive coverage, but as one digs into the content offered, the beauty of the photo spreads is mostly skin deep. Although nearly all game titles presented within are documented with photographs, far too many items are only partially illustrated (e.g. only a cartridge, but not the accompanying manual or original packaging). Given that the authors could have reached out to the collecting community to obtain photos of the missing items, each absence adds up to an inexcusable shortcoming for a field guide. More troubling are entire product ranges that go unmentioned (e.g. the double-ended cartridges Xonox produced for the ColecoVision) and the rather slipshod presentation of non-game materials for each system, such as peripherals and third-party accessories. The latter are listed in bulk at the end of each section, often without photos, and in alphabetical order rather than categorized by item type. Much to-do is made of variants in packaging cataloged within its pages, but here, too, the information is scattered and incomplete, despite appearances that comprehensive research has been done. General layout of each section can at times be equally haphazard, but for the most part works.
   
   Perhaps the greatest weakness of this work is the effort made to assign valuations to items for collectors. In some cases, the information is accurate. However, by and large, the dollar values appear to be assigned with no attention paid to real-world transactions, instead being plucked from the imaginations of the authors or thinly-veiled formulae (e.g. manual prices are near exclusively assigned as a fraction of "complete" specimen prices, which is an altogether mistaken methodology). In some cases, prices are assigned for portions of games that go beyond reason (e.g. per-token pricing for Odyssey 2 board/video games). These are all common traps for collecting guides, and despite assurances that both authors have deep experience with the field, there is little evidence that either managed to overcome personal bias in assigning values. It would have been better to leave the book as an identification guide than to stretch its authority to (poorly) cover individual game pricing. Moreover, it doesn't help matters much that the book itself is littered with pleas from the authors to contact them to sell them your games. Absent independent research, this work should not be trusted as an authority on the valuation of video games of the era.
   
   [...] the guide is also plagued with authorial bias in its summaries of each system and their merits. It would have proved more profitable to devote more space to the history and nature of each system and less to editorializing about which is better than the other. There's a certain amount of hubris involved with the authors' undertaking here, evident from the front and back cover illustrations. What's on display are the gems of a collection, and not the games that would be familiar to someone who might have owned any of the systems covered back in the 80's. The desire to show off the holdings of the authors should have been tempered to broaden appeal of the work, but again, this is a pitfall common to the field.
   
   In sum, this is a fair first effort that tries to cover too much ground to its detriment. For the price, it's a somewhat useful identification guide. Beyond the photos, though, there isn't ample evidence that the book can be trusted as a value guide or comprehensive catalog. Perhaps a later edition will address these problems, but until the authors rein in the exuberance they have for their favorite systems and personal collections and draw upon the larger collecting community to both broaden and deepen coverage, I fear that one can only hope for the fiddling of a number here and there and not much else.



2. Classic 80's Home Video Games is a fantastic pictorial guide of all things the classic video game collector could ever want. Full color photos, prices for loose game, manual and box, along with descriptions of all known variations of said games. This guide doesn't bog down in text descriptions like other guides seem to do, rather, Jason and Robert let the large, beautiful, full-color photos speak for themselves.
   
   The guide also includes some items either glossed over or completely ignored by other guides. Peripherals, patches, posters, catalogs, they are all in there, and all in full color photographs.
   
   I highly recommend this guide, whether you are a new collector just starting out, or a longtime pack rat such as myself. For the price, it really can't be beat.

5 comments about Antique Radio Restoration Guide.

1. I found the book to be a very good guide to restoring tube radios. I agree with one of the other reviews that transitor radio fundimentals would be a handy guide for those of us that can't remember how to biase a transitor anymore. The book is about everything that a person would need to restore tube radios. Thanks.



2. This book starts off on an extremely elementary tone. In fact, people who know what a resistor is may find themselves wondering whether they should be reading this book at all. However, later in the book, there are detailed descriptions of how certain circuits work and how radios work - in a fair amount of detail for an elementary book. Unfortunately, there is very little middle ground. That is, after the first few chapters, terminology is used that has not been defined, nor is it found in the glossary. Consequently, the truly novice reader may need to look elsewhere for the missing information. Some chapters describe, in detail, what could go wrong with an old radio and how to fix the problems. This makes for rather heavy reading, unless one is actually trying to fix a radio that has one of those particular problems; in such a case, these sections could be quite valuable. Radio cabinet refinishing is also covered and suggestions are made on acquiring equipment, parts and further references. Overall, I found this book to be very interesting and written in a style that is clear, authoritative and quite engaging, although, as mentioned, a bit dense in some areas. I intend to refer to it extensively in restoring my old radios.



3. Don't waste your time. Way off on prices-(low). Looked up the first ten tombstone radios on ebay and only one was in the book.Take the money you wound spend on this and get something with a high recommendation.



4. If you never collected a radio, then this is for you. Other than that, there is not enough information to be of help if you have restored one radio. Also, sad to say, the information and sources are not current.



5. For those who are relatively new to the hobby of collecting and restoring antique radios, the frustration stemming from the lack of material devoted to the beginner in this field is all too often the cause of those with high initial enthusiasm to give up prematurely. If you are one of the many who may have found their entry into this potentially facinating pastime to be a bit daunting, take heart. Now in its second edition the "Antique Radio Restoration Guide" provides an abundance of information for the beginning to intermediate antique radio enthusiast. Throughout its twelve chapters the reader is guided through the basics of choosing a radio, the fundamentals of radio theory and repair as well as cosmetic and cabinet restoration. There is also a section on setting up your own repair shop including resources for obtaining test equipment and instructions for actually building some of your own. Though beginners may find some of the technical material in a few of the chapters a bit challenging, this book is nonetheless a fine reference work that, providing the reader's enthusiasm for the subject prevails, he will likely refer to often and will grow into in no time.

No comments about Vintage Radios (Crowood Collectors' Series).

3 comments about Philco Radio 1928-1942: A Pictoral History Of The World's Most Popular Radios.

1. As the follow-up edition to Ron's earlier book on PHILCO, this continues to be the definitive reference for antique radio collectors and mass media historians. PHILCO (short for "Philadelphia Storage Battery Company") was the name synonymous with affordable radios for nearly three decades...along with the well-known "cathedral" style radio of the 1930s and 1940s.
   
   During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the family radio was the last household item to be sold for rent and food money.
   
   I recommend picking up your copy before this edition goes out of print.



2. This is one of my favorite reference books. The pictures are great and especially helpful when you are trying to restore an old disgarded Philco to it's former beauty. Packed with interesting history and trivia. Values listed in the book tend to be on the conservative side, but then again most reference books tend to do this. If you love old radios and their history, this is a "Must Have" for your book shelf. (PS. His website is pretty neat too)



3. Ron Ramirez (Mr. Philco to radio collectors) has compiled one of the finest books of its type. Focusing solely on Philco radios, he traces the evolution of the Philadelphia Storage Battery Co. from its roots to PHILCO, one of America's leading manufacturers of home radios. The book is organized chronologically by model year and includes a photograph and text explanation for virtually every Philco radio ever manufactured. Each chapter begins with a detailed description of the key features of the new models, how Philco responded to the fierce competion of the day, and the company's marketing strategies for the new year. The photography is outstanding with the vast majority of the pictures representing the best available examples of original or restored radios. The author wraps up the book with a listing by year of all Philco models, their tube configurations, and a "rarity" scale. While an excellent technical reference and history book, it also presents an interesting insight into how the Art Deco school of design influenced even radio cabinetry of the period. Highly recommended!

1 comments about Zenith Radio: The Early Years : 1919-1935 (Schiffer Book for Collectors).

1. This book is of real interest to someone interested in tube radios and their beginnings. Has great pictures and copies of sales brochures Just wish the authors would have gone clear through the 1930s.

No comments about Antique Trader Radio & Television Price Guide.