FADA 316T
This is an incredible 1936 FADA model 316T tombstone radio - a radio collecting holy grail.
It is a 5 band, 120 volt special order export model built for wealthy European clients.
This beautifully proportioned 16-tube tombstone table radio stands over 2 feet tall.
A magic tuning eye sits above the elegant large round dial with yellow, blue, white, green and red dial scales
labled with familiar cities around the world and featuring a secondary fine-tuning dial pointer.
Seven stylish wood knobs span the radio beneath the dial.
It was advertised as a 16 tube radio "with 18-tube performance".
A ballast "tube" was included in Fada's tube count.
Ballast "tubes" were nothing more than voltage dropping resistors inside a typical tube casing,
built to keep the heat they generated isolated from other components.
Technically, some would call this a 15-tube radio, excluding the ballast in the count.
It is the largest tombstone I have seen, measuring 25" tall and 20" wide.
The US domestic version did not include the 5th frequency band or
the city-labeled dial. It was the Fada model 216T.
A 12-tube version with the same cabinet was also made,
the Fada model 212T(domestic) and the Fada 312T(export).
A floor model console version was built that has the
identical design elements as the table models, with the features inverted as seen in the 1936 ad below,
the model 212C, 216C, 312C and 316C (T=table, C=Console).
It is an impressive, spectacular radio and both 12-tube and 16-tube versions are exceptionally scarce.
The Riders radio manuals show schematics for 220 volt versions as well.
Fada offered smaller, similar designed 11-tube and 9-tube models in the series, shown below.
Read much more about FADA Radios on the FADA Radio History Page.
I was fortunate to acquire the radio from some friendly folks in The Netherlands
that went through a lot of red-tape and headaches to get it shipped to South Dakota.
Thank you Frank, Hennie and Rick!
It survived the long journey without any problems, thanks to great packing.
The radio came from a large, now-defunct jukebox / radio museum in Belgium that was
recently bought out by a company in neighboring Netherlands (2022).
For size comparison;
