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I would like help determining the age, rarity, and value of these speakers. The drivers are Hollywood 515 woofers, Hollywood 288b driver, N500C crossovers, horns are tar filled 1505 with brass throats. One woofer has the serial number of 6740. Cabinets are 612, they look like they have been painted black as the Interior of the cabinets are grey. Any Information would be appreciated!
Guzziguy you have some fascinating speakers there, this much I know for certain. I would need to see more, much higher resolution pictures to make a guess as to whether they were built that way originally as a special order, or whether someone else put them together later on from standard Altec parts.
What you have was never a standard model, but variants were produced for the Hollywood studios. A friend has blueprints (Warner Bros. I think) for a monitor system using Lansing Iconic bass section of 815 woofer in 612 box, but 500 Hz. components on top (N500A network, 287 driver, H-805 horn). Your systems resemble this a bit later in the permanent magnet era, with the additional twist of the 612s being oriented horizontally. Quite unusual, though I have seen it done before. Your components may date to about 1947, but I have not seen the 612 box used with anything other than a 603 or 604 driver during this period.
If you can, please provide additional pictures of the systems and individual components, especially inside the 612 boxes. With good pics we can tell whether the 612s were recycled from earlier Iconics, or provided new with your other pieces.
Here are some pictures, I hope they help.
Thank you for the additional pictures. I would have a hard time disputing that these systems were assembled in 1947 or 1948 with current production Altec components. Fascinating stuff!
Thanks for you're input Steve. I got these as part of an estate buy of altec speakers and parts. I was told they came from a movie theater,no real supprise there. Sadly I will need to let them go to a new home so I can rebuild the ol bank account. But I will enjoy them for for now.