[Hallicrafters] Fwd: Hallicrafters serial numbers

[Rodney Boleyn]

Gerry,

Here is an email I exchanged with Henry Rogers (Western Historic Radio
Museum) on this very topic.  According to Henry, serial number tags in the
Hallicrafters factory were assigned nearly chronologically based on when a
radio rolled off the line...  it's not clear to me from his email whether
serial numbers were batched by model, but if they were, the batches can be
sorted chronologically by individual production runs.

Based on the serial numbers of the known Hallicrafters DD-1 radios, Henry
believes one of these 3 McMurdo Silver radios was built in the weeks or
days before the first production run of the DD-1, which happened in August,
1938.  The other two radios (including yours) were built in the days or
weeks before the second DD-1 production run, which was approx. Nov. 1938.

-Rodney


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Henry Rogers <w7ybs at att.net>
Date: Sat, Apr 19, 2014 at 10:44 AM
Subject: Re: Information on Hallicrafters and McMurdo Silver production?
To: Rodney Boleyn <icysubdweller at gmail.com>


Hi Rodney,

Please refer to two articles on my website, radioblvd.com - First, would be
the Hallicrafters SX-28 article in the section on serial numbering and how
Hallicrafters assigned numbers. Then, refer to the Hallicrafters DD-1
article in the serial number section.

Essentially, everything at Halli was usually assigned numbers sequentially.
Not always, but most of the time. The DD-1 first production run for example
used a "block" of numbers - H-80500 up to H-80600 approximately. All of
these DD-1 SNs were assigned in August 1938 or so. There was a small second
run of DD-1 receivers that use SNs in the H-856XX range and are from
Nov-Dec 1938. All three examples of your SNs are from around August 1938 to
about November 1938.

Hallicrafters was like most of the radio companies at the time. Their
production is really high September through December and slacks off after
that. Production in the summer was very low since new models were being
engineered and retooling was probably going to be necessary. Halli
generally bought all of the parts external to the company and assembled
receivers so retooling was not too big of a deal. Since the SN assignment
quantity changes during the year, it's difficult to exactly estimate where
a number belongs date-wise other than just generally - unless you have the
inspection tag. These are dated when the receiver left test and was ready
to ship. By comparing similar SNs from tags one can get a general idea of
production flow throughout the year.

It's certainly possible that the 83XXX and 84XXX numbers are from the same
day or so. I would think that the MS MPVI receivers would have been
assembled on a line and would have been done in one run but who knows.
Halli could have had a small group of assemblers that handled "special
orders" and that's why the SNs are separated by a month or two.

73, Henry WA7YBS

 ------------------------------
 *From:* Rodney Boleyn <icysubdweller at gmail.com>
*To:* w7ybs at att.net
*Sent:* Thursday, April 17, 2014 1:28 PM
*Subject:* Information on Hallicrafters and McMurdo Silver production?

Hi Henry,

Norman Braithwaite referred me to you as a possible source of Hallicrafters
production information based on serial numbers.

I recently acquired a McMurdo Silver 20-tube radio that says "Masterpiece
VI" on the front dial. The Masterpiece VI radios are 21-tube radios; this
is a previously-unrecognized variant of the MPVI.  No schematic seems to
have ever been found for it. By searching the internet, I have found that
there are 3 known to exist in the online collecting community... the one I
have, and two others that belong to members of antiqueradios.com:  y2k
Bruce and Jonboy55 <http://antiqueradios.com/>.

Jon described the radio in this thread in 2009, although its unique
attributes do not seem to have been generally recognized at that time:
http://antiqueradios.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=127105

The thing about these 3 radios is, they were all built in the Hallicrafters
factory, and none of them have the typical McMurdo Silver tag on the rear
of the chassis.  They do have Hallicrafters tags under their chassis. All
have very similar Hallicrafters serial numbers: H-80934 (Jon's), H-83995
(mine), and H-84028 (Bruce's).

I'm writing to you, to inquire whether you have ever done a timeline of
Hallicrafters production in the 1938 timeframe, that could be used to date
these radios by their serial numbers?

For instance, I have a late-version Hallicrafters SX-17 (with the 6H6 noise
limiter) that has an identical-style serial number tag in it as my MPVI.
The serial number on the SX-17 is H-94822. If you assume it was built in
spring of 1939, and knowing that the Hallicrafters plant opened in April of
1936, then you could conclude very approximately that the factory was
making maybe 2700 radios/month over those 34-35 months. That would be about
90 radios/day. Bruce's and my radios could have been built on the same day
or subsequent days, since their serial numbers are only 33 apart.  Jon's
was built about 5 weeks earlier, if the assignment of serial numbers is
linear. All 3 of these Silvers would have been built in the mid-Sept. to
mid-Oct., 1938, time frame... just before McMurdo Silver closed its doors.

I was wondering whether you have any information that might confirm or
disprove these very rough guesstimates of dates?

Thanks and talk to you soon,
Rodney Boleyn
Bellevue, WA


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Gerry Steffens <gsteffens at bevcomm.net>
Date: Sat, Nov 8, 2014 at 7:22 PM
Subject: Hallicrafters serial numbers
To: hallicrafters at mailman.qth.net
Cc: Rodney Boleyn <icysubdweller at gmail.com>



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