Description
The Philco Corporation was founded as Helios Electric Co. in 1892. At the beginning of the postwar television boom, from 1948-1955, Philco became a popular manufacturer offering a wide selection of sizes and designs, many modernist in style. Due to reliability issues and a failure to transition to color picture tube production, Philco went bankrupt in 1962 and its assets were absorbed into the Ford Motor Company.
C. Speyer Winkler produced at least 110 concept drawings for the cases of televisions, including cabinets and rolling carts, for the Philco Corporation between 1953 to 1960. After the Soviet launch of Sputnik in 1957, the first satellite, the emphasis in industrial design generally shifted to a “space age” look. Winkler’s numerous designs for Philco followed this trend; they were often in a streamlined, modernist style of the period, though he also designed more traditional television cabinets in that period as well. A comparison between his concept drawings reveals that some of them made it to production, at least in a modified form.
Condition: Generally very good with the usual light overall toning, handling, and wear.
References:
“1957 C. Speyer Winkler’s Concept Design Drawings of Philco Televisions.” @Bcast_Md: Special Collections in Media & Culture.” 7 June 2013. https://broadcastarchive-umd.tumblr.com/post/52388649569/midcenturymodernfreak-1957-c-speyer-winklers (14 April 2020).
“The Philco Predicta.” MZTV Museum of Television. http://www.mztv.com/newframe.asp?content=http://www.mztv.com/predicta.html (24 September 2004).
