Many thanks to SWLing Post contributor, Dan Robinson, who asks if anyone can identify the receiver in the screenshot below from the final season of The Marvelous Mrs. Maizel (click image to enlarge):
The image isn’t super clear because there isn’t a close-up of this radio in the episode.
If you recognize this model, please comment!
Hi All
There are a couple of radios i think i can make out.
In the kitchen there is a red 1952 General Electric 517F.
And in Season 5, episode 2 ( It’s a Man Man Man Man World) there is a 1956 RCA8C7.
The radio i would like help to identify is Season 1 episode 6. There is a radio on top of the fridge.
I dont actually know how to post pics as this is my first time.
Ron
According to the manufacturer’s nameplate in the lower right corner it is a Lautenboomer Model DN99. These came out in 1947, one of the first high-quality German radios produced after the war. The small white triangle at the top left of the control panel is actually the dial pointer, which I see is set to 531 kHz, the low end of the medium wave band – probably tuned to the high-powered Algerian station which has operated there for many years. The treble and base controls are set to midrange for a flat response. The antenna wire runs up the wall and disappears behind the picture. The radio is truly museum quality.
Deciphering Dan Robinson’s mystery photo from the Marvellous Mrs Maizel
Nice puzzle!
A. Solution:
1. The object at the right background below the gilt framed painting and behind the cravat wearing adult male’s raised hand is a chair with 4 or 5 old leather bound books stacked on it.
Thanks to Bill Hemphill WD9EQD for suggesting chair(s)! It was a big hint.
2. The object with a white frame that’s almost flush with the wall at the extreme lefthand side – to the left of the book case – maybe a mirror or an alcove, or just possibly a painting, though I don’t think so. Difficult to say. It is above a shallow built in cupboard that looks like a book cabinet to me.
3. Slightly toward the foreground visually in front of the low level cupboard is a corner of a brown wood table. Likely a dining table or similar.
4. There is a ledge or mantelpiece beneath and in front of the mirror/alcove/painting(?) and bookcase. On this shelf at the far lefthand side there is another stack of 3 leather bound books with a glass paperweight(?) on top of the top volume. Behind the stack of 3 books, there is either a reflection in the mirror, if it is a mirror, or in the alcove, if it is an alcove, are some other indistinct objects. From Dan’s photo, I don’t think it’s a painting, but it might be.
B. Steps to solution
1. Key items in the photo:
a) Child and adult (“pianists”) at the piano
b) Piano
c) Paneled wall and features of the wall behind the pianists
d) Gilt framed painting at the righthand side of the photo
e) Below the painting is a difficult to interpret composite object. To resolve the identity of the composite object, I copied and pasted the image to a word document, then pasted the image again and cropped it to focus in on the composite object. Looking at the image of the composite object several components become apparent:
(i) a slightly curved and tilted vertical brown frame surrounding with a gap on either side
(ii) an unornamented white panel, the line in the wall panelling is obscured by the brown vertical frame but continues behind and between the vertical brown frame and the vertical off-white insert,
(iii) an object or stack of objects in front of the vertical white panel,
(iv) at the extreme bottom right hand side of the frame an angle, a close to a right angle that transitions the rear slightly curved and tilted vertical brown frame to a horizontal frame containing a padded off white insert that matches the vertical off white insert surrounded by the vertical brown frame, ergo a chair,
(v) so what is or are the object(s) on the chair? They are objects, i.e. there are more than one. These objects are 4 or 5 leather bound books, see note 2 below.
f) Book case with diagonal wire lattice security doors containing mostly leather bound books on 3 shelves that are visible or implied
g) Shelf below bookcase
h) Small stack of 3 leather bound books and a glass paperweight(?) at the left hand side
i) Alcove/mirror/painting behind the stack of 3 books and glass object at the left hand side – how do I know it’s glass and likely a paperweight? (i) Glass: Because the frame behind it can be seen indistinctly through it, (ii) Paperweight: because of its shape and size and apparent mass, seems likely to be a solid or near solid object
j) Right angled brown object at left hand side – looks most likely to be a table
2. Just to throw the viewer off the mark, many of the books in the image have broken or damaged spines revealing the underlying binding, this makes it difficult from this photo to confirm if there are 4 or 5 books in the stack on the chair. It’s possible that there is a bottom-most thin dark bound book at the bottom, an alternative interpretation is that this bottom-most object is the bottom cover of the book resting on the chair.
3. (a) The books in the photo seem to be at most quarto or small folio in size, with most being octavo or smaller.
(b) From the usual size of a chair my guess is that the 4 or books on the chair are all quarto or small folio sized.
(c) From the bindings and the state of the bindings, I’d guess that they are mostly mid to late 19th century books, possibly early 20th century.
That was fun!
To Julian….
I believe I was the first to come up with the chair theory…. just saying…..
It’s a chair with some papers and books on it. There are two matching chairs under wall hung paintings on each side of the curio cabinet. In Ep 7, at 6’30” to 7′ you can plainly see both chairs in the video frame.
The only radio I’ve consistently seen in Mrs. Maizel is the clock radio on the kitchen counter next to the can opener.
But what I really enjoyed seeing throughout the episodes is the beautiful Philco Predicta TV. That swivel picture tube is really neat.
73
Bill WD9EQD
Smithville, NJ
I’m inclined to agree it a stack of books. I also think it may be a mirror and what we are seeing is a reflection. If you enlarge the pic you see the different splines, and the colors that various books have.
I think it’s a prop to take up space on a bare wall.
Now I’m seeing the upper part of a wooden chair with the back rest pad in the middle??
As I look at this again with the comments here, I see this could indeed be some sort of case with books at the bottom. But it sure as hell jumped out at first blance as looking like a radio…
Actually, it looks like a framed mirror with something like the realistic dx 150/60 series reflected back in the bottom of the frame….. weird
Or is it just 3 books on top of each other, with the lower 2 books spines facing the mirror?
Maybe an old Nordmende?
This image contains an important and painful message. As the radio has become far from the center of attention in the current life of the people of the world, in this picture all the attention of these two people is on the piano and they do not pay any attention to the radio set on the table next to them.I hope to see the day when people pay attention to the radio as the most important medium of information in their lives, like in the 20s to 50s.
Hosein from Iran, 73
That’s a piano, not a radio. 🙂 (Seriously, I don’t see a radio in that image.) Maybe a Waldo 6200?
No…. look at what is just behind the last three fingers of the man’s left hand. I think that is what’s being talked about…..
I figured, but whatever that is it does not look like a radio.