Philco — BrandWiki

Philco

Overview

Philco

former names	Helios Electric Company Philadelphia Storage Battery Company
type	Private (1892–1961) Subsidiary (1961–present)
foundation	1892
location city	Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
location country	U.S.
area served	Worldwide
key people	Philo Farnsworth
industry	Electronics
products	Consumer electronics
parent	Philips (North America), Electrolux (elsewhere)
homepage	https://www.philco-intl.eu/home-en

Philco (an acronym for Philadelphia Battery Company)[1] is an American electronics manufacturer headquartered in Philadelphia. Philco was a pioneer in battery, radio, and television production. In 1961, the company was purchased by Ford and, from 1966, renamed "Philco-Ford". Ford sold the company to GTE in 1974, and it was purchased by Philips in 1981, which became a subsidiary of the Dutch company Philips in 1987. In North America, the Philco brand is owned by Philips. In other markets, the Philco International brand is owned by Electrolux.

In the early 1920s, Philco made storage batteries, "socket power" battery eliminator units (plug-in transformers), and battery chargers. With the invention of the rectifier tube, which made it practical to power radios by electrical outlets, in 1928, Philco entered the radio business.[2] They followed other radio makers such as RCA, Atwater-Kent, Zenith Electronics, Freshman Masterpiece, FADA Radio (Frank A. D'Andrea Radio), and AH Grebe into the battery-powered radio business.

Early history

Philco was founded in 1892 as Helios Electric Company.[6] From its inception until 1904, the company manufactured carbon-arc lamps. As this line of business slowly floundered over the last decade of the 19th century, the firm experienced increasingly difficult times. As the Philadelphia Storage Battery Company, in 1906 it began making batteries for electric vehicles. They later supplied home charging batteries to the infant radio industry. The Philco brand name appeared in 1919.[7]

Radios

Until the mid- to late-1920s, all radios except crystal sets were powered by vacuum tube batteries which were expensive, needed frequent charging, and leaked battery acid, reducing the wife approval factor in the home. A very successful August 1925 Philco consumer product, called the "Socket Power Battery Eliminator", was a rectifier unit which enabled users to operate radios from standard light sockets. By 1927 over a million of these units had been sold, but from that year the industry began manufacturing batteryless radios using RCA's AC tube. The almost immediate end of demand for battery eliminators forced Philco to quickly design and manufacture its own radios that used household power. The first Philco radios were introduced in mid-1928, and 96,000 were produced that year, making Philco radios 26th in the nation in production volume.[8] Up to that time most radios were handmade and priced for relatively wealthy consumers. Atwater Kent, the leading radio seller, coincidentally was also located in Philadelphia.

The Philadelphia Storage Battery Company decided that prices of radios could be scaled for a mass market by incorporating assembly line techniques then only used by the automobile industry. By the 1929 model year, Philco was in third place behind Atwater Kent and Majestic (Grigsby-Grunow Corp) in radio sales. In 1930, the company sold 600,000 radios, grossed $34 million, and was the leading radio maker in the country. By 1934, they had captured 30% of the domestic radio market.[9]

Philco radios were economical without sacrificing quality or durability. Like other makers of the era, they offered a wide line of radios beginning with five-tube sets all the way up to high-fidelity consoles with 20 tubes in 1937–38. Philco also made battery-powered radios which were by then called "farm radios", most of which had cabinets identical to their AC powered versions. The Philco "Baby Grand" (today called "cathedral" radios by collectors) was a shape that featured an arched top that wrapped from the sides over the top. This was for economic reason partly, as one piece of wood formed both the top and sides. Philco sold far more of this style than any other maker, a total of over two million (in over twenty models, with from four to eleven tubes) from 1930 to 1938; many of them exist today in collections. By today's standards, most are still excellent performing AM band radios when restored.

A few of their innovations were very futuristic. From 1939 to 1941, they sold radios that were operated by wireless remote control,[8] the one-tube "Mystery Control", used on their 13-tube model 116RX-SU (or 39-116). This feature was not offered by any other maker until the 1970s stereo receivers. Philco ranked 57th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.[10]

Another interesting product was the Philco "Beam of Light" 78 rpm record players offered in 1941 and 1942. These units had a tiny mirror attached to the player's needle. A beam of light was focused on the mirror which caused a vibrating light to hit a photoelectric cell and produce the audio signal. While this system had some advantages over the standard crystal phono cartridge of the time, it was unreliable and is today a very difficult unit to restore.

Expansion

In 1941, in response to outside needs for personnel skilled in electronics, Philco founded a training and installation organization that evolved into its TechRep division, with hundreds of personnel styled as Field Engineers or TechReps in positions worldwide.[11][12][13] This division later became the foundation for the Ford Aerospace organization.

Philco began marketing car radios in 1930 and later expanded into other areas including air conditioners (1938), refrigerators (1939), home freezers (1946), consumer televisions (1947), electric ranges (1949), home laundry washers and dryers (1954), and home entertainment products. Their first consumer television set, the 1948 table Model 48-1000, had a 10 in black-and-white screen and sold for US$395.

By 1954, Philco had led the radio industry in sales volume for 24 straight years, selling over 30 million radios.[14]

Philco was also a pioneer in television broadcasting, launching Philadelphia experimental station W3XE in 1932. In 1941, the station became the third commercially licensed TV operation in the United States as WPTZ. It was sold to Westinghouse Broadcasting in 1953 and became KYW-TV, a CBS owned and operated station.

The Philco Predicta TV set was introduced in 1957 for the 1958 model year. It was a black-and-white television with the picture tube mounted in a unique steerable pod on a pedestal. There were many versions: 17" or 21" picture tubes, wood or metal cabinets and table or floor standing versions, some with rare UHF tuners. Its specially designed, high-deflection-angle (to achieve a shallow front-to-back depth) picture tube turned out to be unreliable, and cost the company dearly in repairs and reputation. The 1959 model included a console and a table model.[8] Many of them were sold to motels and bars due to the convenience of the swivel tube arrangement. It was discontinued in 1960; a disappointing failure for Philco.[15] Due to the unique design, the Predicta is a collector's favorite and restored examples can easily be found.

Transistor research and product development

In late 1953, engineers at Philco Corporation invented the surface-barrier transistor,[16] the first high frequency transistor suitable for use in high speed computers.[17] Philco Corporation had produced a late 1950s production film about its surface-barrier transistor manufacturing processes and product developments that was titled, "Philco Transistors - The Tiny Giants Of The Future".

A May 1954 news article describes Philco's development of a pre-production indium-coated transistor that used silicon instead of germanium that relied on further improvements in silicon refinement to bring to production.[18]

In June 1955, the National Security Agency and the United States Navy entered into a contract with Philco to build a specialized scientific transistorized computer based on Philco's surface barrier transistor technology. The project was called SOLO, since the idea was to have powerful personal workstations, and the computer was later commercially named the Philco Transac S-1000.[19]

Demise

On December 11, 1961, Ford Motor Company purchased Philco and continued to offer consumer products, computer systems and defense related projects.[45][46] The company, which had supplied Ford with some of its car radios as early as the 1930s, continued to provide Ford with car and truck radio receivers; consumer product investments were also made to color television production. Along with color and black and white television, Philco continued to produce refrigerators, washers, dryers, air conditioners, stoves, radios, portable transistor radios, portable phonographs, console audio systems with high quality "Mastercraft" furniture cabinets, and component stereo systems.

The company branded Philco products as "Philco-Ford" in 1966, and console stereo systems reached their zenith during 1966 and 1967, with high quality cabinet construction and powerful stereo chassis systems of 100- and 300-watt consoles. Philco at one time was one of the largest furniture producers in the world, but the end was near for "high quality" furniture cabinets along with stereo equipment. Solid wood cabinets with veneers were replaced with cheaper wood composites covered in vinyl paper and plastic wood pieces. The quality electronic systems that had been built in the United States were replaced with new designs and systems, engineered and built at a plant owned by Philco-Taiwan. Eventually, all consumer electronic goods would be made by Philco-Taiwan, to lower costs of production and be more competitive in the market. The prevailing industry trend was to move consumer electronic manufacturing to Asia in order to lower the cost of labor and production, and Philco-Ford was no exception to this. Heavy consumer goods (major appliances) such as refrigerators, air conditioners and washer-dryers continued to be built in the United States, along with television receivers.

Ford dropped the computer business a few years into its ownership of the company.[47]

In 1973, a complete line of breakthrough refrigerators was introduced, consisting of eight side-by-side "Cold Guard" models, which used about one-third less electricity than comparable competitive makes.[48] But by January 1974, Ford was eager to rid itself of the home products in Philco's lines, which was not doing well.[47] Negotiations with appliance maker White Consolidated Industries (WCI) started in January, but were called off in March.[47] By September, Ford and GTE Sylvania – Philco's largest competitor – announced the sale of the non-automotive parts of the business, with the exception of the new refrigerator range, which Ford also kept. The deal closed on December 11.[47]

In 1977, GTE sold Philco International to earlier suitor White Consolidated Industries.[49] (In 1986, WCI was bought by AB Electrolux.)

The company (as well as the Sylvania brand name) was acquired from GTE by Philips (NAP) in 1981 so that NAP could use its trademark in the United States. Philco had been able to keep NAP from using its trademark because of the similar-sounding names, so NAP had sold its products in the United States under the name "Norelco". In 1987, NAP became a wholly owned subsidiary of Dutch electronics company Philips. Philips later used the Philco name for promotional consumer electronics and licensed the name for private brands and retro-style consumer electronics. Philips also licensed the Philco brand name to Funai for digital converter boxes for analog TVs in the USA.[50] As of September 2019, the US website is no longer functioning.