Lewis's Radiogram - Any info?

[RadioRevival]

Hi all,
I recently bought this Lewis's Radiogram (Or is that just the name of the radio maker?) off an online marketplace for £25 and am looking to restore!
I've tried to have a look for some information on the year of when these were produced but cannot find anything?
Does anyone have any info?

[Radio Wrangler]

Probably branded for Lewis' department store.
The turntable and arm may be the HMV/Colombia ones of the middle thirties.

The first check is to take the back off for some photos. Are all the valves there? Are the type numbers legible? they can help recognising known chassis designs. Some valve types are now sought after by a small group of hifi people who are prepared to pay silly prices, so radios and radio grams of this period often pop up minus a couple of pieces of glassware.

A listing of the radio stations on the dial can sort the dating for you as the population changed over the years.

David

[Paul_RK]

I'd not been familiar with the Lewis's store chain, but, yes, it will have been made for them, rather than for John Lewis who used the Jonell brand. I'll take a stab at just after WWII for the date. Will be interesting to see what's inside, but it doesn't look to be the class of instrument likely to be blessed or cursed with a triode output stage - more a competitor for the likes of Portadyne, with probably a fairly standard 4V+R circuit.

Paul

[Radio Wrangler]

In the fifties and sixties, Lewis's was the chief department store in Leeds. Trips to their Christmas toy department was a high point for this particular kid. To Yorkshire folk, they were our Harrods.

This inevitably leads to the question of who made it for them?

David

[stitch1]

Originally Posted by RadioRevivalism

Hi all,
I recently bought this Lewis's Radiogram (Or is that just the name of the radio maker?) off an online marketplace for £25 and am looking to restore!
I've tried to have a look for some information on the year of when these were produced but cannot find anything?
Does anyone have any info?

I spotted that on marketplace too, I don’t have the space for it so pleased to see it’s been saved, good luck with the restoration.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis%27s


John

[cathoderay57]

The radiogram that I grew up with in the 1960s had a strikingly similar dial. Its brand name was Richmond so another department store item, probably from the same maker. I no longer have it but I downloaded some pictures of a similar item that I spotted for sale recently which I have attached so that you can see the resemblance. This item had been fitted with a more recent turntable since the original was a Garrard RC65A, similar to yours but with an autochanger for 78s (example pic attached). The valve line-up was 6K8G, 6K7G, 6Q7G, 6V6G, 5Z4G. In other words, a standard 5-valve superhet dating from somewhere between 1946-49. You are unlikely to find an exact circuit diagram and chassis layout so the best thing to do is to try to identify a set with the same valves and use that as a guide. There are dozens of possible examples but I'll wait to see if you confirm the valves first. Cheers, Jerry

[Sideband]

Plessey tended to manufacture a lot of radio's and radiograms for departments stores. The chassis could be very similar with just cosmetic differences.

[paulsherwin]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

In the fifties and sixties, Lewis's was the chief department store in Leeds. Trips to their Christmas toy department was a high point for this particular kid. To Yorkshire folk, they were our Harrods.

I think they were a northern chain. There was a big store in Hanley, Stoke built around 1963 with a very distinctive aluminium sculpture on the outside known as the 'man of fire'. The building still stands, but Lewis's is long gone.

https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news...spikey-5078075

There's a Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis's

[rontech]

Originally Posted by Radio Wrangler

In the fifties and sixties, Lewis's was the chief department store in Leeds. Trips to their Christmas toy department was a high point for this particular kid. To Yorkshire folk, they were our Harrods.

This inevitably leads to the question of who made it for them?

David

My family often visited the Liverpool store. There was a large record and radio department in the late forties to early sixties. I don't recall any items under their own label though.

[rontech]

Originally Posted by paulsherwin

I think they were a northern chain. There was a big store in Hanley, Stoke built around 1963 with a very distinctive aluminium sculpture on the outside known as the 'man of fire'. The building still stands, but Lewis's is long gone.

https://www.stokesentinel.co.uk/news...spikey-5078075

There's a Wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis's

The Liverpool store had an explicit naked male statue, by Epstein I think. It was locally referred to to under a variety of names inappropriate to this forum!

[McMurdo]

I only started going to Lewis's (Hanley) in the 70's when the art-deco shop had been rebuilt in a distinctive 60's modern style, and have never seen any own-brand anything in there. It was the sort of upmarket shop where you heard people let their friends know exactly where they'd bought an item from, if they wanted to show off, well before 'labels' became a thing. By the 80's their tv and radio department were B&O agents and felt very upmarket.

I don't think that radiogram would have been a cheap option over and above a well-known brand. Interesting thing!

[paulsherwin]

I remember them as a pretty typical department store of the era, as parodied in 'Are You Being Served'. They were mid market rather than seriously upmarket, rather like the unrelated John Lewis today. I remember they made a big fuss at Christmas, with Santa travelling through the city on a 'sleigh' before arriving at a grotto in the store. I think the 1963 store had the first escalators in the Potteries, which lots of people refused to use.

The chain went through a number of changes over the years, in a desperate attempt to remain profitable. They went through both upmarket and downmarket phases, with increasing numbers of concessions being given floor space (always a sure sign of a department store in trouble.)

[ms660]

When I was a kid just about everyone I knew had been to Lewis's in Manchester, it was a large store.

Lawrence.

[Richard_FM]

Originally Posted by ms660

When I was a kid just about everyone I knew had been to Lewis's in Manchester, it was a large store.

Lawrence.

I remember my Brother once got lost in there during a shopping trip.

Originally I thought it was owned by John Lewis.

We had a thread quite recently about radios being badge engineered for department stores, sometimes using an in house brand rather than the store name.

[vintage_8bit]

Suggested above, was Portadyne. See pic of my one. Again as suggested be nice to see a pic of the internals. Colin
P.S. mine had a date on the main smoothing cap of June 1946.

[D.Finney]

Lewis's also had shops in Liverpool, Manchester and Blackpool, the Liverpool shop was still going around 2005, the Manchester shop closed a couple of years before that, I think the Blackpool shop closed in the 1990's.

[Nickthedentist]

former branches:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewi...ormer_branches

[FERNSEH]

Radio chassis was probably made by the same firm that made the Richmond AA510.

http://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/s...d.php?t=159634

DFWB.