Vintage Curtis Mathes Stereo console---late 1950s

[bobcycles]

Estate find. Vintage Curtis Mathes console Tube powered with large speakers...
Radio and turn table. Untested (cord was cut) I guess these were pretty state
of the art back in the day and made in Texas! There is a detailed background
about the company on line.

The Official Vintage Curtis Mathes site by Glenn Waters

This is a short history of the once famous Curtis Mathes Electronics Company. Welcome to the Official Vintage Curtis Mathes site, I am Glenn Waters

www.curtis-mathes.com

Super heavy piece of furniture.... 150.00 as it sits
local PU naturally.... can deliver local LA / OC / Ventura county...

 

[GiovanniLiCalsi]

I had one just like it.
What goes around comes around.

 

[all riders]

The last company to build TVs in the U.S. (I believe)

 

[Tim the Skid]

If you don't sell it build a guitar amp from it.

 

[bobcycles]

If you don't sell it build a guitar amp from it.

SO funny you suggest that...was at my luthier/guitar/amp guys house/shop... asked him to try
and get it fired up. Wouldn't power up. I gave it to him for trying.... he's going to salvage
quite a bit of it. He does me big favors so happy to pay it forward. Speakers were big..
probably sound killer!

 

[Tim the Skid]

He'll save the tubes, rectifier, speakers, and maybe the transformer. I helped a bandmate make a cool amp out of an electric organ that someone threw out.

 

[Nashman]

Sweet. I'm on another planet these days spending $$ on guitars. Duesenbergs. It's a Doosey!!

 

[Tim the Skid]

Very nice Nashman! I like Fender Telecasters. I'm partial to my '68 lately. (I think we had a guitar thread started somewhere. I'll see if I can bring it up so we're not hijacking Bob's post here.)

 

[Schwinny]

My first hobby is tube electronics. You can check out "Resoundingamplification" on FB.
I stopped doing that now though. Now Im all bikes and just listen on my own amps. I cant play a git anymore.
CM had a factory in Georgia and one in Texas. Those two states is where Most CM is found but of course they migrate with families over time. They stumbled going national and went out of business as CM. I had a high end CM TV back in the late 1970's, it was very high quality.
That console is good to refurbish and use as a console again or for parts. All CM stuff was combination chassis, so nothing will stand alone unless you make a separate chassis and wire it all together. Its only about 10wpc in the first place having only 2-6BQ5's for output (7-12wpc eachdepending). The output transformers are going to be limited range and the Power Transformer will be one that can barely keep up.
All in all. It has four tubes that are worth about $50 total IF they test ok. The rest of the tubes are useless.
Git amps and repro amps are different animals, you need to know the differences in capacitor and architecture values to swap one to the other. They will of course work either way but will sound like ass if not rebuilt for specific use.
I used to buy old consoles just to pull the electronics and make stuff.
Check out that FB page and see some of my old stuff made and owned. You will like it.