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Alhambra I

RARITY: ¤¤¤   VALUE:  ¤¤ 

The Alhambra I was Victor's very first radio/phonograph combination set. It featured Orthophonic reproduction for records (with a small re-entrant horn), along with a battery-operated RCA Radiola Model 20 Radio. Victor contracted with RCA to provide the radios for these consoles, but RCA also had agreements with other phonograph companies (such as Brunswick), so the combination radio/phono idea was not unique to Victor. However, this was Victor's very first attempt at marketing a home "entertainment center".  A mechanical valve "switch" would change the routing of the horn input from the radio to the phonograph. The Alhambra used a two-spring turntable motor and a blended mahogany cabinet.
The Alhambra I sold for $350.00 new, which equates to about $5,200.00 in today's money. A more deluxe version, the Alhambra II, was offered in this same timeframe. It featured a more advanced radio, but all other components are identical to the Alhambra I.
The Alhambra I was also identified in some of Victor catalogs as the VV 7-1, but this model designation has not been found on any surviving machines to date. Approximately 5,000 Alhambra I consoles were produced. All were made between October 1925 and April 1926. Since radio and electronic technology was developing so rapidly in the mid-1920's, the Alhambra I became obsolete within a year, and it is likely that many were sold at discount in 1926. The high cost of restoration of these early electronic sets limits the interest of many collectors today.

The current survival database shows the earliest existent Alhambra I to be s/n 562 and the latest to be s/n 4501

Do you own a Victor Alhambra I? Please take a moment and enter some basic information about your machine into the collector's database by clicking here. No personal information is required.