[Hallicrafters] Hallicrafters serial numbers

[Gerry Steffens]

Is there any documentation or knowledge of how Hallicrafters assigned serial
numbers?

I have a collection of McMurdo Silver radios in addition to the
Hallicrafters collection.  Hallicrafters began assembling radios for McMurdo
Silver in September 1936 which was near the end of the Masterpiece V
production.  Hallicrafters attached license tags under the McMurdo Silver
chassis they assembled.  The early Masterpiece VI radios had a paper version
of the Hallicrafters license tag with a serial number.  Later Masterpiece
VIs had metal license tags with serial numbers.  Both the paper and metal
tags are identical to the metal tag on my SX-28 and tags on other
Hallicrafters equipment of that vintage, complete with the preprinted "h"
followed by a number.

Is there a connection of the serial numbers to when the unit was assembled?
If so, do we know what that connection is?  Do we know when they switched to
metal tags from paper?

A variant of the Masterpiece VI has surfaced.  We know of three of them, I
have one.  I am attempting to determine when they were produced as there is
no Silver documentation of any such variant.  Were these early
pre-production models?  Late production modifications?  Or what?

After the Silver bankruptcy in November 1938, Davega City of New York bought
the inventory of hardware and continued to sell Masterpiece VI and 15-17
radios into 1941.  Might these radios be of that genre?  Or, Radio News
magazine published one ad for the 1939 Masterpiece, actually after the
Silver shutdown.  Could these radios be a planned 1939 version?

If there is any knowledge of Hallicrafters serial numbers, it might be
helpful in finding answers to these questions.

Thanks for any assistance,

Gerry


Gerald L Steffens  P.E.
Oronoco  MN

Radio Historian, collecting & restoring E.H. Scott, Heath, McMurdo Silver,
Hallicrafters, National, Zenith Transoceanic & any other interesting radios
& classic Oldsmobiles

Collections stand at about 300 radios, 5 Oldsmobiles & a 1950 GMC long bed
1/2 ton