Barker 88

[Yorkie]

It's the Marshall factor...

Lawrence.

£92.00 for a transformer? Ground for divorce - I wouldn't pay that even if the rest of the amp was attached to it, but clearly, that's the going rate that the market will stand.

I find that anything to do with amplifiers - be they for guitars or hi-fi - is really quite surreal, price wise. The mere mention of the words 'Marshall, Quad, Leak'... seems to send enthusiasts into paroxysms of ecstasy and bring a lump to their wallets. (Mustard caps come to mind - it's their unique 'tonal quality' of course). It's like the enthusiasts exist in a parallel universe, in which the currency has a tenth of the value of that in the 'real world'. But I wouldn't seek to lecture people on how that should spend their hard earned cash and would likewise take no such lessons myself. That said, to put the price into perspective, if we backtrack on what inflation has done to prices, the price of that transformer - £92.00 in 2014 - equate to £3.00 in 1950, and I guess that’s not far off what people were accustomed to payin for a transformer of that spec back then?

http://safalra.com/other/historical-uk-i...onversion/

As to the Barker 88, the query about the transformer spec has been answered.

The set was – as perhaps most people know – designed and made for the furniture firm, both just prior to WW2 then shortly afterwards, from 1947 on. They’re not especially rare and were unbelievably cheap when new considering the spec. The ‘88’ is said to stand for eight valves (inc the magic eye), and 8 Watts output from a push-pull output stage, which was very unusual for a table set, and ordinarily only found in radiograms and console radios. It covers long, medium and short-wave bands.

The valve line-up and cabinet shapes vary, and information on the set is sparse beyond Trader Sheet 747, which was issued in 1945 and really harks back to the pre-war set which had a mains energised speaker and a different cabinet style from the post-war model, which unusually had the distinctive high quality dial and the controls on the left-hand side and the speaker on the right. Another somewhat unusual feature is that at first sight it seems only to have one IFT. That’s because the second IFT is single tuned and unscreened, and is located under the chassis, though can be adjusted from above.

No idea who manufactured them for Barker - it seems to be a mystery, but they seem to have sold in quite large numbers because they seem not to be rare, nor to command high prices. The conundrum of course with Robin’s set – as with all sets of low value - is that to buy an expensive mains transformer (or even a couple of valves), is simply not cost-effective unless the set is of sentimental value as a ‘keeper’. There must be scores of scrap sets and chassis at places such as the Golborne Swapmeet, Harpy, Wooton Basset, Cowbit etc, typically no more than a fiver, which would yield a suitable transformer.

They certainly perform well - I had one which I passed on to Colin as the cabinet was very poor, finished in non-descript veneer, as was the case with most post-war valve radios in the late 40s. Colin completed a miraculous restoration of the cabinet, re-veneering it with burr walnut, details of which he covered in a thread on the forum. The before and after pics are at post #74 in this thread:

http://golbornevintageradio.co.uk/forum/...hp?tid=306&page=8&highlight=Barker++88

Follow that!