May 11, 2013. The Kutztown Antique Radio Swapmeet for Spring 2013 was held at the Renninger's Farmers Market and Antique Center in Kutztown, PA. This event was hosted by the Delaware Valley Historic Radio Club. While the majority of the radios were those wonderful, polished mahogany gems, there were many amateur radio boatanchors among the collector's radios.
Once in the center of Kutztown, it's only a mile up Nobel street to Renninger's and the two giant pavilions.
Arriving just two hours before closing on the last day of the show, I was surprised to see so many people.
As expected, the antique mahogany radios were everywhere.
An unusual piece, was this Russian table model radio.
At the end of the first tour of the pavilions, I met my friend Jim, KN3DZY. Jim had a very good experience this year at Renninger's, having sold everything but a microphone and a VTVM. (Jim's prices were very low and the gear was in immaculate condition, both operationally and cosmetically).
Later Jim KN3DZY was joined by his friend Barry KU3X. I noticed they were both staring off into the distance, apparently checking out the blondes!
Amateur radio equipment was everywhere, I wonder how much ham equipment was for sale on the first day, when sales were red hot.
"his master's voice" ??
There were quite a few novelty radios, including Snoopy and CocaCola radios.
Tubes, tubes tubes and tube checkers too.
Radio knobs to fit any radio on the planet.
There were miscellaneous not radio related, but they for for sale anyway.
This old frequency meter brought back memories. When I was in the Navy at Guantanamo Bay Cuba, a message came down to my shop chief indicating that an aircraft carrier would be coming by late in the day and wanted to know if we could make a radio check on a specific HF frequency. We had nothing but UHF-VHF gear at the airfield, but I told the chief we could try if he was willing to get some guys together to put up an HF antenna. Well, the antenna was put up and with the BC-221, I calibrated the TCS radio equipment and lo and behold, we were able to make the radio check. We spent all day for a radio check of perhaps 10 seconds, but we got serious satisfaction !
There was a stick pin map, showing where all the attendees were from. Some came from quite a distance.
A splendid radio swap meet. I could only imagine the radios and sales that transpired on day one. Maybe next year.
