Rare 1935 Sparton Canada 255A Table Radio w. Bluebird Speaker
Beautiful early short-wave radio introduced just before Walter Dorwin Teague's famous Bluebird
In a Nutshell
Waterfall design with a warm and homely looking dial and majestic symmetrical side louvers
Introduction:
The 5-tube lineup used in this radio was very popular and was used for a large number of radios from 1934 to 1939. Canadian Sparton produced this beautiful radio in 1935 exclusively for the Canadian market, and it is extremely rare (only one sales record ref.1). Sparton USA in 1935 produced a small wooden table radio too, model 506, that often is confused with model 566, the famous Bluebird, designed by Walter Dorwin Teague later the same year, which has the same transformerless chassis. The Canadian version of the Bluebird, model 154B, probably forced by Canadian law, had to use a transformer equipped chassis with the speaker (part No. C1776) directed upwards. My radio 255A uses this very same speaker and a very similar chassis (only the first tube differs). I had restored an equally rare Sparton 255 console radio before for a customer from Vancouver (pict.29), and submitted both as new models to radiomuseum.org (ref.2). The radio has a beautiful back-lit celluloid dial, a waterfall front and two majestic side louvers, of which one is used for the speaker. The radio covers pretty much of the SW spectrum except the 60m band and anything shorter than 30m. It uses a very peculiar intermediate frequency of 345kHz.
Additional information:
ref.1: http://radioattic.com/item.htm?radio=0960185
ref.2: http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/spartoncan_255a.html and http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/spartoncan_255.html
About my Radio:
The radio in mint condition, with original finish, knobs and other parts. It is serviced and aligned and plays fine on all bands, when a simple dipole antenna is attached. Please
e-mail me (Kris) for any questions, ich spreche Deutsch, je parle Français.
For the techies only:
It looks like that only Sparton, and only in 1934/35 used the unusual intermediate frequency of 345 kHz for some of their radios. I have no clue why.
Here are the specifications:
Technical Description of Item
Manufacturer
Sparton of Canada Ltd., London, ON Canada
Model
255A
Type
3-band SW table radio
Production Year
1935
Serial Number
26552
Cabinet
Multi-tone wood
Chassis
5-Tube Chassis with Mains Transformer
Tuning Range
520-1600kHz, 1.5-4.5Mhz, 6-16Mhz, IF=345kHz
Controls
Band selector, tuning coarse and fine, tone, on/off - volume,
Speaker
6" field coil speaker, same as in Canadian Bluebird 154B
