The Victor-Victrola Page   

R-32

RARITY: ¤   VALUE:  ¤ 

When radio became the rage in 1924-1925, the Victor Talking Machine Company was caught totally unprepared, and sales of old-style phonographs tanked. So to get back into the consumer market, Victor relied on a licensing agreement with RCA to design and produce radios for their radio/phonograph combination models. This agreement lasted for nearly 5 years. But understandably, Victor did not want to depend on an outside supplier for a critical element of their products, so they designed and manufactured their own "Microsynchronous" radio, which proved to be one of the top-performing sets of 1929.
The R-32 was a Microsynchronous radio-only set (without phonograph), and was one of the final products introduced by Victor in the spring of 1929, just prior to the time that the company was purchased by RCA.  It was functionally identical to Victor's more expensive R-52 model, which had been launched just a few months earlier; the difference being that the R-32 utilized a smaller cabinet without doors in the front to conceal the controls. The R-32 also shared the same Microsynchronous radio with the RE-45. the RE-75 and several other models; but unlike those sets, it did not have a phonograph integrated into the cabinet.
Approximately 188,000 R-32's were made before production was discontinued in early 1930, making it the 11th top-selling product that Victor had ever made. The list price was set at $155.00, which equates to about $2,400.00 in today's money. Tubes were not included in this price. The buyer had a choice of a walnut or mahogany veneer with a blended lacquer finish. The excellent performance of this set and its relatively affordable price made it an extremely successful product; those units which remained in dealer stock after the onset of The Depression in the fall of 1929 continued to sell well. Dealers continued to market them well into the early 1930's, and the Microsynchronous radio remained a very competitive product even as newer radio designs were being introduced.
The high cost of restoration of these early radios limits the interest of many collectors today.

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