1962 Nordmende "Samba C" Console Radio + Dual 1007A Phono
As good as it gets: rare and beautiful German "Konzertschrank" from 1962 ageless in its homely plainness
In a Nutshell
Even after 50 years this console will be the centerpiece of your home and satisfy all your musical needs
Introduction:
In 1923 Hermann Mende and Rudolf Müller founded the "Radio H. Mende & Co. (GmbH)" in Dresden, which was totally lost during WWII. After the war the Sovjets carried the factory over into the "Volkseigenen Betrieb" VEB Funkwerk Dresden (FWD), whereas at the same time Martin Mende and Hermann Weber founded "Norddeutsche Mende-Rundfunk GmbH" in West-German Bremen-Hemelingen. Nordmende was one of the many German radio manufacturers, that after WWII actively participated in the "Deutsches Wirtschaftswunder", the Economic Miracle, a period of post-war prosperity under chancellor Konrad Adenauer and his minister of economics Ludwig Ehrhard. Soon most of the factories also started exporting "Made in Germany" radios around the world.
Here is a Nordmende model Samba C, a "Musiktruhe", "Musikschrank", "Konzertschrank" (music console), exclusively produced for export in 1962. The radio has 8 tubes, 6 speakers and plays the wavebands AM/BC, 2 x shortwave and stereo FM (up to 108 MHz), and has various inputs for other devices. It comes with the legendary high-end automatic record changer model 1007A, made by Dual. Dual is leading when it comes to automatic gauging of record size and speed and simplicity and reliability of operation. All series 10 record changers use the famous and infamous AM-2 changer center spindle - famous, because it can hold and drop a whole stack of records without needing any other arm to stabilize it - infamous because that spindle's operation relies on the integrity of 3 little rubber pieces, that in all cases need to be correctly rebuilt - unused, new in box, or not - because the rubber dissolved with time (see techies below). The console is extremely rare and was not in the inventory of radiomuseum.org - now it is (ref.1). Ref.2 has various free manuals for the Dual 1007A, ref.4 repair tips (in German).
About my Radiogram:
The console was sold by T. Eaton Co. on August 14, 1962 for 329 Canadian dollars (that was 1300 Deutsche Mark, and thus about 500 DM more than in Germany) to a customer here in Vancouver, who used and cherished it till death parted them. There was not much to restore, since it worked perfectly when I got it - except two little problems: as already mentioned, the record changing center spindle had to be rebuilt (see techies), and two thin front edge veneer pieces (marked red in pict.7) were lost in transport and had to be replaced. The radio chassis, the record changer and the cabinet were dismantled, cleaned and serviced, and the set now looks and plays like 50 years ago. The radio plays loud and clear and the record changer works perfectly (click on thumbnail 46 or go directly to youtube (ref.5} to watch a 13 minute video. The radio accepts cellphones, mp3 players etc. through a tape input on the back. Please
e-mail me (Kris) for any questions, ich spreche Deutsch, je parle Français.
For the techies only:
The center spindle is shown in picts. 40-42, parts are numbered in pict.41. The automatic pushes the central part of the spindle at point a and with it the stamper 1 against the force of spring 2 upwards. The pyramid-formed part of part 1 eventually will splay out the three brass leaf springs 3, on the left end of which are glued one rubber piece 4 (dimension 6x2x2 mm) each. These rubber pieces penetrate openings in the spindle's body and have the purpose to prevent all except the bottom of the stack of records from falling down, when the next step is executed - the retraction of parts 5. Only the bottom record is dropped, and when the force at point a is released parts 5 come out again to hold the stack and the leaf springs with their rubber pieces are retracted to let the stack fall by one record thickness. The effect of missing or deteriorated rubber pieces is that the whole stack is dropped at once.
