A Fishy Story…. By Steven Pena, HVRA Historian

It was not without some small degree of disappointment that I heard the birds chirping that Saturday morning, announcing that, though it was still rather dark outside, it was already time to rise for our July club meeting. My wife reminded me that I was to take her to an estate sale after lunch, and that there was no artful squirming out of it this time
The club meeting was enjoyable; we learned how to make a radio dial at home, and as an added bonus, how to erase a watermark. Afterward we joined another club member for a nice plate of barbecue at a place nearby. On the way home, however, I was reminded about the estate sale; so off we went. I was milling around the rooms of the old house where the sale was when out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a late-40s console. There are a lot of late-40s consoles so I passed by it and went on milling about and hoping my better half found only inexpensive things to interest her. On about my third time through that same room (it was a house built in the 40s also) I glanced at the lonely console and noticed the dial sported the familiar flying dove of the Fisher Company. This puzzled me, as I had thought Fisher consoles dated back no earlier than the 50s. On closer inspection I found that not only was it a Fisher, but a sort of special edition console called the “Anniversary,” and boasting something in the neighborhood of thirty tubes. On the back it had a sticker, stating that it was from the Fisher Co. in NYC to a family in Corpus Christi, TX, with the address appended. I believe these units must have been custom ordered. I stood and stared at it a moment. Pouring into my mind were thoughts of just exactly how to word a statement, the meaning of which would be, more or less, “this sixth console will be our last…promise.” The trouble of course was that I had used the same line when we got our fourth, and when we got our fifth. I wondered if it were possible that I might begin to lose credibility at some point.
To my pleasant surprise my wife (saintly woman she is) thought the beautiful old wood was just lovely and declared we should buy it. But I decided to call a couple of trusted club members in order to insure that a 1947 Fisher was indeed rather rare, as I suspected. (Later, I learned from a Fisher enthusiast online that only five of the Anniversary editions are known to exist.) So I went back the next day and found it was still there. Though it was priced a good bit higher, I offered the gentleman $65 and he said, “Deal !” We rented a Home Depot truck and the two of us brought it home.

The moral of this story is always listen to your wife….. no, not really, that’s not the moral; the moral is simply–Never forget, a nice old vintage piece could be anywhere