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The Northland Antique Radio Club
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Mark Your Calendar!
February 12, 2012 - Northland Antique Radio Club: Workshop & Outdoor Mini-Swap Meet May 18-19, 2012 - Northland Antique Radio Club: Radio Daze 2012 See Calendar of Events for details of NARC's upcoming and past events. |
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Saturday November 5, 2011 (Open to the public 8:30 am to 1:00 pm) St. Croix Lutheran High School 1200 Oakdale Avenue, West St. Paul, Minnesota NARC's fall meet is moving back to November this year! Last year it was about 2 weeks earlier, which was fine, but we have to take whatever date is available at the school so hopefully attendance will still be as high as it was last year. Mary Farmer is coordinating this meet and we appreciate her efforts, taking over for Ed Ripley who moved to Florida last year. This is your last chance before winter to clear out those unwanted radios or to buy some radios to work on this winter, so be sure to come! The meet will once again be held at the St. Croix Lutheran High School located at 1200 Oakdale Avenue in West St. Paul Minnesota. Doors open for seller setup at 8:00 am. Only those individuals who are purchasing selling tables will be admitted at this time. Due to the limited space and number of tables, you MUST be a NARC member to sell. Selling tables cost only $10.00 each and are provided by the school. Note: Sellers will have to carry their items a short distance to the swap meet area, so bring a hand truck or small cart if you have anything heavy. The school requests that you please use extra care not to mark the floors with your hand cart and please bring a protective covering for the table. Doors open for the buyers at 8:30 am. Admission for members is free, and non-members can get in for only a buck. The registration table will be run by Mary Farmer, as usual. She'll be collecting table fees, signing up new members, and taking membership renewals for the 2011-2012 club year. You are invited to help yourself to the snacks and beverages on the hospitality table, thanks to our hospitality chairmen, Lynn and Kim Wagar. A light lunch, usually hot dogs or sloppy joes, chips, a cookie and a pop, will be offered later in the morning for about three bucks. Silent auction rules are the same as last year. Silent auction items will be accepted for display from 9:00 am until noon, with the auction closing promptly at noon. The club provides auction forms and assesses no fees. All sales are final. All settlements for items purchased through the auction are to take place directly between the buyer and seller. All items up for bid are being sold "as is". Sellers can establish a minimum bid and types of payment accepted (cash, check, trades) for successful bids. High bidders and owners MUST stay until the auction closes to complete their transactions. NARC is simply providing the means for the auction and assumes no responsibility for seller or buyer actions. Be sure to stay for the 50/50 drawing at noon! Drawing tickets are $1 each or 3 for $2. We have the room until 1:00 pm, so the meet will probably start winding down after the drawing, giving sellers an hour to pack up. |
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& SWAP MEET The Northland Antique Radio Club will be holding its 25th annual meeting and election of officers at the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting in St. Louis Park at noon on Sunday September 18, 2011. All NARC members are invited to attend. Like in past years, the meeting will be preceded by an old radio swap meet outside in the museum parking lot. The meeting starts at noon inside the museum with Steve Raymer providing the president's recap of the events of the past year. Greg Farmer will announce election results and Jim Thompson will recap of how the event went in May. The same people are running for the club offices as last year since no one else has been nominated. Steve Raymer is nominated for club president, Alan Jesperson for vice president, Greg Farmer for secretary, and Mary Farmer for treasurer. The term of office will be October 1, 2011 to September 30, 2012. The program will include our traditional "Finds of the Summer" display. NARC members are encouraged to bring in new additions to their collections acquired over the summer. It will be interesting and fun to see and hear what other radio club attendees lucked upon at garage sales, flea markets, estate sales or family hand-me-downs. Prizes will be given for the most popular items. Remember this event is FREE for all current and renewing members. Also, don't forget to come a little early to check out the outdoor swap meet in the museum parking lot! It usually is going strong by 10am and winds down by 11 or 11:30. It's free to sell and there are always some good deals available. See you there! |
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By 6:00 p.m. Friday evening May 20th, radios and related items were filling up the auction room. We were in for a busy evening, kicking off NARC's 25TH annual Radio Daze event with a huge auction! The room was filled with consoles, wood and bakelite table radios, boxes of tubes, paper and everything else imaginable. There were even some big Scott radios, like last year. At 7:00 p.m., NARC's new auctioneer, Frank Rasada, started selling. He had lots of help this year; Jim Thompson, Matt Hyman, Glen Berg, Bill Linder, Kip Wallace, and Bill Fanum held items up for the audience to bid on, or were spotters. There wasn't an empty seat in the house. Some items went for the minimum bid of $10, while others went for pretty good money. Only 32 of the 219 items didn't sell, either because they couldn't get the minimum bid or because they had a reserve price that wasn't met. The items were of very good quality this year. Some of the better items included a Scott All-Wave 23, a Scott Phantom, a 16-tube Scott, and an Atwater Kent 82 grandfather clock radio. There were also some nice cathedral radios including a nice Atwater Kent 84, a Marconi, and some Philcos. The better battery sets were a Radiola V, Grebe CR-9, a Federal 57, Radiola 26 and a Neutrowound. Some very nice Zenith Transoceanic radios, various advertising signs, and many other items were also sold. Frank did a great job all night, and his energy never wavered. Mary's color-coded tags were used again to evenly distribute each seller's items throughout the auction, making it more fair so no seller had all their items sell late when the crowd was thinning out. The reserve price system was different and worked better than last year, but will be tweaked again next year so bidders won't know the reserve beforehand. This year's auction was bigger and as good as last year. Frank was the front man, but he had a lot of help. Mary Farmer, Kim and Lynn Wagar, and Don Hauff managed the business end of the auction. They all pitched in to collect fees, get buyers, sellers and the auction items registered. They worked like a well-oiled machine and made everything run smoothly. Great job everyone! The next morning was overcast and it rained on and off all during the outdoor swap meet. The lot wasn't quite as full of sellers as last year, but still many good items quickly traded hands between the showers and we made the best of it. It became a more steady rain later in the morning and everyone moved inside where the hospitality room, manned by Lynn and Kim Wagar, Kip Wallace's mother Joy and her friend Theresa Jackson, got very busy. The contest had many great items entered again this year, including Bob Slagle's big 1930s Coca-Cola bottle radio which was awarded the Best of Show trophy, Kip Wallace's 1931 and 1932 British McMichael radios, Matt Hyman's matched pair of McIntosh MC-30 amplifiers, and many more. The program included the presentation of the Best of Show and People's Choice contest awards, an interesting in-depth presentation by Don Patterson about the history of Grebe and also about another of his favorite 1920s radio inventors, David Grimes. The program ended with our usual abundance of door prizes, thanks to the Kip Wallace family. Thank you all for coming, and a special thanks to everyone who helped! |
Radio Daze 2011, the Upper Midwest's ultimate vintage radio collecting event, will be held Friday and Saturday, May 20-21, 2011, at the Comfort Inn of Plymouth, located at the northwest corner of I-494 and Hwy. 55 in Plymouth, Minnesota. This will be our 14th year at this great location! Room rates are still only $73.00 (plus tax) per night for either a single or a double room. The Comfort Inn's reservation phone number is (763) 559-1222. This is NARC's premier event, and we are proud to have both the the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting and the Antique Wireless Association (AWA) as supporting sponsors. The auction, swap meet, radio contest, program, and awards presentation are well attended by prominent vintage radio collectors from across the country. The radio contest includes equipment displayed from the earliest days of radio to the 1960's. Brochures will be mailed in early April to all known radio collectors in the five state area. The meet kicks off with a large antique radio auction in the hotel main ballroom at 7:00 p.m. Friday! We make this an entertaining auction and there will be a good variety of radios available. If you want to sell your radio(s) at the auction, check them in between 3:00 and 6:00 pm Friday. Auction preview is 6:00 to 7:00 pm, and the auction starts at 7:00 pm. The auction will be different this year.
A visit to the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting is always a highlight of 'Radio Daze' and they schedule their annual garage sale of surplus radio relics for this weekend. The Pavek museum is located at 3517 Raleigh Avenue in St. Louis Park, Minnesota and will be open at 10:00 am sharp on both Friday and Saturday. Make sure you are displaying your Radio Daze name tag for free admission. Saturday begins with the hotel parking lot swap meet in the morning. (Please note that the permit from the City of Plymouth does not allow any parking lot sales prior to Saturday morning.) The hospitality room will be open at 7:00 am with hot coffee and rolls. A light lunch will be available 11:00 am to 1:00 pm. The registration room opens at 8:00 am. Item check in for the old radio contest will run from 11:00 am to noon, with viewing from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm. The contest has some new categories, including MY FAVORITE RADIO. We hope EVERYONE brings a radio for this category and includes a short description of WHY it is their favorite radio. This particular category won't be judged by rarity, condition, or value and may actually be an extremely difficult category to judge, so don't be surprised to see multiple blue ribbon winners! Also, the Best Restoration award will again be awarded to a restored item in ANY category! If you are entering a restored item, documentation of the restoration would greatly improve your chances of winning this award. Contest categories are described in the Radio Daze 2011 brochure. A trip to the contest room always yields a surprise or two! For Saturday lunch, NARC will offer a light lunch in the hospitality room, or a great meal can be had at Axel's Bonfire restaurant within the hotel. Several other restaurants are nearby, including Perkins, Jake's Sports Bar, and some fast food establishments. The Saturday program begins at 2:00 pm and includes opening comments, contest awards, door prizes, and a featured speaker. This year's speaker will be Don Patterson, publisher of the first 201 issues of the Radio Age publication. Don is a great source of information on all the major early radio brands. You won't want to miss this presentation! Click here to see the Radio Daze 2011 brochure. Also, click here ( 2001 / 2002 / 2004 / 2005 / 2007) to see photos from previous years! Registration is required for admittance to all indoor events, the Hospitality Room, the Pavek Museum, and to sell items in the parking lot. Registration is encouraged, but not required, for anyone just attending the auction or buying at the swap meet. You can pre-register (and save $3.00) by returning a registration form before May 13th. After you arrive, please pick up your name badge and other materials in the Registration Room. |
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Sunday February 6, 2011 Museum of Broadcasting 3515 Raleigh Avenue, St. Louis Park, Minnesota  The Northland Antique Radio Club's annual Radio Workshop will be on February 6, and is once again hosted by our club president, Steve Raymer, at the The Museum of Broadcasting, located at 3515 Raleigh Avenue, St. Louis Park, Minnesota 55416. This is a favorite event for many NARC members and is always very enjoyable. Last year, despite extremely cold and windy weather outside, the seating area was jam packed, proving that us hearty Minnesotans will venture out in the worst of weather for a workshop about old radios. Remembering last year and the terrible weather, the outdoor swap meet appeared to be a 100% success! I only saw one hardy seller out there and he only had one radio to sell, but it sold! Hopefully the weather cooperates this year so we have our normal swap which always has some interesting radios and other radio things for sale at reasonable prices. And, of course the museum will have its back room open with a nice selection of surplus items back there priced to sell. The day begins with the swap meet outside in the parking lot. The museum will open its doors at 11 a.m., an hour before the workshop begins. This hour is a great time to explore the museum, check out the back room, visit with fellow collectors, and munch on the snacks that Kim and Lynn Wagar will be bringing. But please, no snacks in the museum main room! The workshop starts at noon and will probably last about 2 hours. Steve is busy preparing a technical presentation that will show how to measure gain within each stage of a radio receiver. Charlie Bradley will also talk, and Steve would welcome anyone else who can help by showing any sort of restoration technique you might like to share, such as veneer and wood finish restoration, bakelite repair and restoration, electrical restoration, or whatever. If you have any questions about helping with the program or want to contribute, please call Steve at 952-926-8198. Admission is free to all current Museum of Broadcasting and NARC members (and immediate family members). Membership forms will be available for anyone wishing to join the club. See you all there! |
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Saturday October 23, 2010 St. Croix Lutheran High School 1200 Oakdale Avenue, West St. Paul, Minnesota It was another good meet! Held a week or two earlier than in past years, the weather was great and there was a very good turnout. All the tables were sold except one, so there were lots of vendors with radios for sale and we counted 125 attendees. As usual, sellers were let in before 8:00 am to get their tables set up prior to letting buyers in at 8:30. We get a few complaints about this every year; from sellers who want more set-up time, buyers who want to get in at the same time as sellers, people who think it should start earlier, and people who think it starts too early. Our goal is to make this an enjoyable event for everyone, but obviously it is sometimes impossible to make everyone happy. After considering all this, the officers believe that starting the meet earlier isn't beneficial to many and would make it more difficult for the regular attendees who travel that morning from distant places such as Austin, St. Cloud, Mora, Cohasset, Owatonna, Le Sueur, and Rochester. And, remembering the complaints we got from buyers prior to 2008 when we had a 1 hour set-up time, it seems the 1/2-hour set-up is the best compromise. If anyone has a good solution to make everyone happy, let us know! | |
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Possibly even more enjoyable than buying radios was getting the chance to visit with our collector friends. By noon, the buzz was dying down as sellers were packing up. The school custodian complimented us on how well the meet went and they are looking forward to us coming back again next fall. |
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NARC MEMBERS!
Check out NARC's online list of members having email addresses or websites. This list now contains about 80 members and their interests! |
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The Northland Antique Radio Club