via this auction"Maestrovox 1950's Vintage Valve Synthesizer, Serial Number 1098. One of only 19 officially known to still exist in the world today!
Maestrovox tube (valve) synthesizers / keyboards / organs first went on sale on May 5th 1952 at the British Industries Fair at Olympia, London, where it was hailed as the "Success of the Year" taking orders in excess of £80,000! that would be about £1.6 million pounds today! It was endorsed by numerous music stars of the era."
Somehow, it seems to be that
ReplyDelete"One of only 19 officially known to still exist in the world today!"
and
".... where it was hailed as the "Success of the Year" taking orders in excess of £80,000! that would be about £1.6 million pounds today! It was endorsed by numerous music stars of the era."
...seem to contradict each other somewhat.....
dunno, 1.6 mil p.s. = +/- 3.2 mil u.s.d.. If it had a price commensurate with those monster tube radios of the time, say 50k u.s.d., that comes out 64 units. Mostly what surprises me is that 19 of those are confirmed to still exist.
ReplyDeletenever mind. Looking at the thing there's no way they could have charged that much for it.
ReplyDeleteWell guys if you had checked the Maestrovox Official Site then you'd have had all the answers and more that you needed. I can tell you that the first model sold for 63 guineas,yep, thats guineas!! I'll let you do the maths! They are acknowledged generally as being extremely rare, only 20 have surfaced over the past 3 years since the website went live. I can't work out what metasonix meant when he quoted contradiction, seems straight forward to me! Obviously too sizone, in these pictures you can only see the amplifier and speaker section of the electronics, the keyboard itself has all the rest required to create those early synth orchestral sounds! http://www.debbiecurtis.co.uk/id99.html is where you'll find all the answers, pictures and circuits etc.
ReplyDelete