Seventy-five years ago this month, the February 1941 issue of Radio Craft carried this ad for an unusual Hallicrafters receiver, the S-31 AM-FM tuner.
It’s difficult to figure out the exact market this receiver is intended for. It’s designed for a rack mount, and requires an outboard audio amplifier, since it is just the tuner. It tuned the standard AM broadcast band, as well as the prewar 42-50 MHz FM band. It was obviously a high-end piece of equipment. According to the 1941 Hallicrafters Catalog, the set had a retail price of $69.50. The matching 25-watt high fidelity audio amplifier retailed for $49.50.
The set’s 9-tube complement consisted of 6SK7, 6SA7, 1852, 1853, 6SJ7, 6H6, 6SK7, 6SR7, and 80. The standard broadcast IF was 455 kHz, with an FM IF of 4.3 MHz.
Not surprisingly, few seem to be in existence today. One nice example can be found at LA5KI’s site.
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Does this unit have any collectors value? I have one that was given to me. I’d like to find it a home with someone that would like to add it to their collection.
I suspect there’s demand, since Hallicrafters has something of a cult following, and I’m sure this particular one is fairly rare.
Your best bet for selling it is probably eBay. Shipping will probably be fairly expensive, so figure out how much that would be before listing it. Something like this should really be double boxed–box it up securely, and then put that box inside a larger box with packing material.