Sears/Silvertone Stereo Record Player with a Built-in AM only tuner

[vortalexfan]

Originally Posted by Electronic M

It is definitely an interesting combination of features. Throughout the 50s a number of companies made 3-4 speed changer Am only table radio Phono combos, and I've seen a number of phonos designed for add on stereo speakers, once in a blue moon you will see provisions for a wired remote, but the three together is fairly unusual. Lack of FM is the thing that makes it odd because if it had FM it would be a solidly up market set.... the mail order companies like Sears are the only ones I could see making such a set...In a rural community far far away from the big cities ( where FM stations were primarily located back then) that could not get any FM stations the reduction in cost of ohmitting FM would have been a selling point. The cheap wired remote probably helped it further.

That's what I was thinking, it spent most of, if not its entire life in a small town just west of me called South Bend, Indiana.

If you never heard of the town well it was home of the Studebaker Company for many years, it was also home of the South Bend Watch Company (who actually supplied Pocket Watches to Studebaker Company for many years), and it was also home to the College Football Hall of Fame for years and its also home to Notre Dame University (Home of the Fighting Irish).

From what I read South Bend didn't get its first FM Station until the late 1960s, so it would make sense that a record player/radio like this would of been sold there.