Art Deco ("Haagse Stijl")
oak cabinet with
details in coromandel wood made by H.P. Mutters & Zn.,
The Hague. Valves: A425, A409, B406, B403. Some minor
damage was restored by furniture restorer Ruben Spelbos
in
Utrecht.
Data about the former owner
The radio was
presumably bought in the year 1929 by Theodoor (Theo) Abels,
who lived from 1886 until 1979. He was a mechanical
engineer and worked since ±1910
for the Royal Dutch Navy in the former Dutch West-Indies.
After getting his military pension
in the nineteen thirties, he remained active and moved with his family to Malabar, where he lead a tea
plantation and headed the power station of Malabar and Bandung.
The radio itself always remained in The Hague. After Abels' death in 1979,
the radio ended up in a number of attics and was finally
sold in the beginning of 2007.
Data about the
cabinet
H.P. Mutters & Zn., or "De Koninklijke Nederlandse Meubelfabriek
H.P. Mutters & Zn", came into existence at the end of
the 18th century. In his workshop Herman Pieter Mutters
built cabinets in the style of his time (Louis
XVI and Empire). The workshop was situated in Molenstraat,
near the Koningspoort. This Mutters married a family
member of Vincent van Gogh, Sara Johanna van Gogh. One
of the children, also called Herman Pieter, took over
the business. His son, again called Herman Pieter, took
over from him. This third H.P. Mutters had studied in France and
after his return befriended King William III. The
factory made the interior of the Royal Waiting Room of
the Hollands Spoor train station in The Hague and some
palaces. Under Herman Pieter IV, large passenger ships
were fitted with a beautiful interior. The "ss
Amsterdam" and the "ss Rotterdam" of the Holland America
Line, for instance.
But also
foreign ships were fitted with an
exquisite design. The very luxurious first class of
the Titanic, for one. The sister ship of the Titanic was
also decorated by Mutters. From 1900 onwards, Mutters made "modern" furniture, designed
by artists and architects like Lion Cachet and Hendrik Berlage.
Listen to "Ukulele
Baby" by Jack Hylton and his Orchestra, sung by
Jack Hylton and Chappie D'Amato,
recorded February 25, 1926
Top view
Visible are two
coils, one for 300-800 m and one for 800-2300 m, four
valves, each with their own rheostat, a wavelength
switch and a number of binding posts. Each valve has
a tap in the rim of the lamp holders, that makes it
possible to measure correct filament voltage. A later
version of this radio (February/March 1927) had two
extra push/pull switches for switching between long wave
and short wave.
The
inside of the radio
In the upper left
corner a Sterling push/pull switch, next to it the green
Sterling variometer. Below the push/pull switch the
first coil base and below that a low-capacitance Utility
switch. In the middle four German Hegra
rheostats, below left, the two low frequency
transformers (one with the brand name Erres and one by Telefunken,
the 326; 1:4). The
original Erres 1:3 transformer is shown in the right
picture (from a review in Radio Expres, 1926). Between
both air-gap condensers (by General Radio Company) the second coil
base and a Dubilier condenser in combination with a
Loewe resistor are visible. In the
middle, between the valves 1 and 2, a Lissen choke coil.
Both telephone jacks are by Sterling. The four
lamp holders are flush-mounted. The chassis is
entirely made of triplex.
The tuning knobs,
one with fine tuning, were made in the United States by Kurz Kasch Company in Dayton, Ohio.
The
radio was checked (by a dyslectic person: serial number 2087 instead
of 2078) on December 30, 1926...
...chassis
and cabinet were integrated on January 3rd, 1927. I
bought the radio on January 3rd, 2007, exactly 80 years
later.
Type plate
The panel with the type plate
can be removed, behind it the holes for the wires leading to the binding
posts are
visible.
Stamp of the cabinet maker:
H.P
Mutters & Fils, La Haye
First advertisement for the H & B IV in
Radio-Expres, October 1st, 1926
A view of a part of the Internationale Radio
Tentoonstelling Amsterdam (I.R.T.A) in October 1926.
Electrotechnisch Bureau D.
Teske, Douzastraat 5, Leiden, shows radios made by Van der Heem & Bloemsma
on a sales stand. Probably at the end of 1926.
(With many thanks to L.J.
Gussenhoven for providing the picture)
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