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Philco (an acronym for Philadelphia Battery Company) is an American
electronics The field of electronics is a branch of physics and electrical engineering that deals with the emission, behaviour and effects of electrons using electronic devices. Electronics uses active devices to control electron flow by amplification ...
manufacturer headquartered in
Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...
. Philco was a pioneer in battery, radio, and television production. In 1961, the company was purchased by Ford and, from 1966, renamed "Philco-Ford". Ford sold the company to GTE in 1974, and it was purchased by
Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is ...
in 1981. In North America, the Philco brand is currently owned by Philips. In other markets, the Philco International brand is owned by
Electrolux Electrolux AB () is a Swedish multinational home appliance manufacturer, headquartered in Stockholm. It is consistently ranked the world's second largest appliance maker by units sold, after Whirlpool. Electrolux products sell under a variety ...
. In the early 1920s, Philco made storage batteries, "socket power" battery eliminator units (plug-in transformers), and battery chargers. With the invention of the rectifier tube, which made it practical to power radios by electrical outlets, in 1928, Philco entered the radio business. They followed other radio makers such as
RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...
,
Atwater-Kent Arthur Atwater Kent Sr. (December 3, 1873 – March 4, 1949) was an American inventor and prominent radio manufacturer based in Philadelphia. In 1921, he patented the modern form of the automobile ignition coil. Biography Arthur Kent was born ...
,
Zenith Electronics Zenith Electronics, LLC, is an American research and development company that develops ATSC and digital rights management technologies. It is owned by the South Korean company LG Electronics. Zenith was previously an American brand of consumer e ...
, Freshman Masterpiece, FADA Radio (Frank A. D'Andrea Radio), and AH Grebe into the battery-powered radio business. By the end of 1930, they were selling more radios than any other maker, a position they held for more than 20 years. Philco built many iconic
radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30  hertz (Hz) and 300  gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a tr ...
s and
television set A television set or television receiver, more commonly called the television, TV, TV set, telly, tele, or tube, is a device that combines a tuner, display, and loudspeakers, for the purpose of viewing and hearing television broadcasts, or using ...
s, including the classic
cathedral A cathedral is a church that contains the ''cathedra'' () of a bishop, thus serving as the central church of a diocese, conference, or episcopate. Churches with the function of "cathedral" are usually specific to those Christian denominations ...
-shaped wooden radio of the 1930s (aka the "Baby Grand"), and the
Predicta The Philco Predicta is a black and white television chassis style, which was made in several cabinet models with 17” or 21” screens by the American company Philco from 1958 to 1960. The ''Predicta'' was marketed as the world’s first swivel ...
series of television receiver sets of the 1950s.
Philo Farnsworth Philo Taylor Farnsworth (August 19, 1906 – March 11, 1971) was an American inventor and television pioneer. He made many crucial contributions to the early development of all-electronic television. He is best known for his 1927 invention of t ...
, credited for inventing the first fully functional all electronic
vacuum tube A vacuum tube, electron tube, valve (British usage), or tube (North America), is a device that controls electric current flow in a high vacuum between electrodes to which an electric potential difference has been applied. The type known as ...
television system (patent # US1773980- filed Jan 7, 1927), worked at Philco from 1931 to 1933.


Early history

Philco was founded in 1892 as Helios Electric Company. From its inception until 1904, the company manufactured carbon-arc lamps. As this line of business slowly foundered over the last decade of the 19th century, the firm experienced increasingly difficult times. As the Philadelphia Storage Battery Company, in 1906 it began making batteries for
electric vehicle An electric vehicle (EV) is a vehicle that uses one or more electric motors for propulsion. It can be powered by a collector system, with electricity from extravehicular sources, or it can be powered autonomously by a battery (sometimes ch ...
s. They later supplied home charging batteries to the infant radio industry. The Philco brand name appeared in 1919. From 1920 to 1927, all radios were powered by storage batteries which were fairly expensive and often messy in the home.


Radios

A very successful August 1925 product, called the "Socket Power Battery Eliminator", was a
rectifier A rectifier is an electrical device that converts alternating current (AC), which periodically reverses direction, to direct current (DC), which flows in only one direction. The reverse operation (converting DC to AC) is performed by an inve ...
unit which enabled users to operate their battery-powered radios from standard light or wall sockets. By 1927, over a million of these units had been sold, but the invention of the vacuum tube rectifier (incorporated into the coming 1928 line of radio sets) made this technology obsolete. In 1926, Philco decided to begin making radios. The first Philco radios were introduced in mid-1928, and 96,000 were produced that year, making Philco radios 26th in the nation in production volume. Up to that time most radios were handmade and priced for relatively wealthy consumers. Atwater Kent, the leading radio seller, coincidentally was also located in Philadelphia. The Philadelphia Storage Battery Company decided that prices of radios could be scaled for a mass market by incorporating assembly line techniques then only used by the automobile industry. By the 1929 model year, Philco was in third place behind Atwater Kent and Majestic (Grigsby-Grunow Corp) in radio sales. In 1930, the company sold 600,000 radios, grossed $34 million, and was the leading radio maker in the country. By 1934, they had captured 30% of the domestic radio market. Philco radios were notable for their economy of design without sacrificing quality or durability. Like other makers of the era, they offered a wide line of radios beginning with five-tube sets all the way up to high-fidelity consoles with 20 tubes in 1937-38. Philco also made battery-powered radios which were by then called "farm radios", most of which had cabinets identical to their AC powered versions. The Philco "Baby Grand" (today called "cathedral" radios by collectors) was a shape that featured an arched top that wrapped from the sides over the top. This was for economic reason partly, as one piece of wood formed both the top and sides. Philco sold far more of this style than any other maker, a total of over two million (in over twenty models, with from four to eleven tubes) from 1930 to 1938; many of them exist today in collections. By today's standards, most are still excellent performing AM band radios when restored. A few of their innovations were very futuristic. From 1939 to 1941, they sold radios that were remotely operated by wireless controls, the one-tube "Mystery Control", used on their 13-tube model 116RX-SU (or 39-116). This feature was not offered by any other maker until the 1970s stereo receivers. Philco ranked 57th among United States corporations in the value of
World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...
military production contracts. Another interesting product was the Philco "Beam of Light" 78 RPM record players offered in 1941 and 1942. These units had a tiny mirror attached to the player's needle. A beam of light was focused on the mirror which caused a vibrating light to hit a photoelectric cell and produce the audio signal. While this system had some advantages over the standard crystal phono cartridge of the time, it was unreliable and is today a very difficult unit to restore.


Expansion into other products

Philco began marketing car radios in 1930 and later expanded into other areas including air conditioners (1938), refrigerators (1939), home freezers (1946), consumer televisions (1947), electric ranges (1949), home laundry washers and dryers (1954), and home entertainment products. Their first consumer television set, the 1948 table Model 48-1000, had a screen and sold for US$395. By 1954, Philco had led the radio industry in volume sales for 24 straight years, selling over 30 million radios. Philco was also a pioneer in television broadcasting, launching experimental station W3XE in 1932. In 1941, the station became the third commercially licensed TV operation in the United States as WPTZ. It was sold to
Westinghouse Broadcasting The Westinghouse Broadcasting Company, also known as Group W, was the broadcasting division of Westinghouse Electric Corporation. It owned several radio and television stations across the United States and distributed television shows for syndicat ...
in 1953 and operates today as
KYW-TV KYW-TV (channel 3) is a television station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States, airing programming from the CBS network. It is owned and operated by the network's CBS News and Stations division alongside CW affiliate WPSG (channel ...
, a CBS owned and operated station. The
Philco Predicta The Philco Predicta is a black and white television chassis style, which was made in several cabinet models with 17” or 21” screens by the American company Philco from 1958 to 1960. The ''Predicta'' was marketed as the world’s first swivel ...
TV set was introduced in 1957 for the 1958 model year. It was a black and white television with the picture tube mounted in a unique steerable pod on a pedestal. There were many versions: 17" or 21" picture tubes, wood or metal cabinets and table or floor standing versions, some with rare UHF tuners. Its specially designed, high-deflection-angle (to achieve a shallow front-to-back depth) picture tube turned out to be a very unreliable design, and cost the company dearly in repairs and reputation. Many of them were sold to motels and bars due to the convenience of the swivel tube arrangement. It was discontinued in 1960; a great failure for Philco. Today, due to the unique design, the Predicta is a collector's favorite and restored examples can easily be found.


Transistor research and product development

In late 1953, engineers at Philco Corporation invented the
surface-barrier transistor The surface-barrier transistor is a type of transistor developed by Philco in 1953 as an improvement to the alloy-junction transistor and the earlier point-contact transistor. Like the modern Schottky transistor, it offered much higher speed than ...
, the first high frequency transistor suitable for use in high speed computers. Philco Corporation had produced a late 1950s production film about its surface-barrier transistor manufacturing processes and product developments that was titled, "''Philco Transistors - The Tiny Giants Of The Future'

In June 1955, the
National Security Agency The National Security Agency (NSA) is a national-level intelligence agency of the United States Department of Defense, under the authority of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). The NSA is responsible for global monitoring, collecti ...
and the
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
entered into a contract with Philco to build a specialized scientific transistorized computer based on Philco's surface barrier transistor technology. The project was called SOLO, since the idea was to have powerful personal workstations, and the computer was later commercially named the Philco Transac S-1000. The SOLO transistorized large scale scientific computer was finally built and delivered to the National Security Agency in November 1957. Philco also entered into a contract with the U.S. Navy's David Taylor Basin Research Division in 1955, to build a larger scale fully transistorized computer using its surface-barrier transistor technology, which was named the CPXQ model and later became the Philco Transac S-2000. Philco had developed and produced a miniature transistorized computer brain for the Navy's jet fighter planes in 1955, which was called the "Transac" (C-1000, C-1100) and which stood for "Transistor Automatic Computer". It used Philco's high-frequency surface-barriers transistors in its circuitry design.
Chrysler Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automotiv ...
and Philco announced that they had developed and produced the world's first all-transistor car radio and it was announced in the April 28, 1955, edition of the ''Wall Street Journal''. Chrysler made the all-transistor car radio, Mopar model 914HR, available in Fall 1955 for its new line of 1956 Chrysler and Imperial cars, as a $150 option ($ in dollars ). Philco's radio manufacturing plant in Sandusky, Ohio, had produced the all-transistor car radio unit for the Chrysler Corporation, which also used Philco's
surface-barrier transistor The surface-barrier transistor is a type of transistor developed by Philco in 1953 as an improvement to the alloy-junction transistor and the earlier point-contact transistor. Like the modern Schottky transistor, it offered much higher speed than ...
s in its circuitry design. In 1955, Philco developed and produced the world's first all-transistor phonograph models TPA-1 and TPA-2. This was originally announced in the June 28, 1955, edition of the ''Wall Street Journal''. Philco had begun selling these all-transistor phonographs in the fall of 1955 for $59.95. The October 1955 issue of ''Radio & Television News'' magazine (page 41) printed a full-page, detailed article, on Philco's new consumer product all-transistor phonograph. The Philco all-transistor portable phonograph TPA-1 and TPA-2 models played only 45rpm records and used four 1.5v "D" batteries for its power supply. "TPA" stands for "Transistor Phonograph Amplifier". Its circuitry used three Philco germanium PNP alloy-fused junction audio frequency transistors. After the 1956 season ended, Philco decided to discontinue the all-transistor portable 45rpm phonograph models, for transistors were too expensive compared to vacuum tubes. The Philco Transac models S-1000 scientific computer and S-2000 electronic data processing computer, were the first commercially produced large-scale all transistor computers, which were introduced in 1957. It used discrete surface barrier transistors instead of vacuum tubes (as the integrated circuit had not yet been invented). It also used a fast adder, originally invented by Bruce Gilchrist,
James H. Pomerene James Herbert Pomerene (June 22, 1920 – December 7, 2008) was an electrical engineer and computer pioneer. Biography Pomerene was born June 22, 1920 in Yonkers, New York. His father was Joel Pomerene and mother was Elsie Bower. He receive ...
and Y.K. Wong of the
Institute for Advanced Study The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent schola ...
. It incorporated a speed up technique for asynchronous adders reducing the time for additive carry-overs to propagate.Gilchrist, Bruce
"Remembering Some Early Computers, 1948-1960"
, ''Columbia University EPIC'', 2006, pp.7-9. (archived 2006)
In 1959, Philco developed and produced the world's first battery-powered portable transistorized TV. This TV model was called the "Safari" and it contained 21 transistors inside. Philco had developed the VHF micro-alloy diffused-base (MADT) transistors and used them in the Safari portable TV. The retail selling price was $250.00 ($ in dollars ) plus the cost of the rechargeable battery, which was $5.25 extra ($ in dollars ). In 1962, the Philco 2000 Model 212 computer was chosen for use in the
North American Aerospace Defense Command North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD ), known until March 1981 as the North American Air Defense Command, is a combined organization of the United States and Canada that provides aerospace warning, air sovereignty, and protection ...
's famous
Cheyenne Mountain Complex The Cheyenne Mountain Complex is a Space Force installation and defensive bunker located in unincorporated El Paso County, Colorado, next to the city of Colorado Springs, at the Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station, which hosts the activities o ...
. Three of the machines were installed that year and ran until 1980. The machines were also used by research labs at
Westinghouse Electric The Westinghouse Electric Corporation was an American manufacturing company founded in 1886 by George Westinghouse. It was originally named "Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Company" and was renamed "Westinghouse Electric Corporation" in ...
and
General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable ene ...
.


Space systems

In 1960, the Courier 1B, built by Philco, became the world's first active repeater satellite. Courier 1B was built by the Western Development Labs (WDL) division of Philco, previously known as "Army Fort Monmouth Laboratories" (
Fort Monmouth Fort Monmouth is a former installation of the Department of the Army in Monmouth County, New Jersey. The post is surrounded by the communities of Eatontown, Tinton Falls and Oceanport, New Jersey, and is located about from the Atlantic Ocean. T ...
). In 1960,
NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeedin ...
contracted with Philco to build the worldwide tracking station network for
Project Mercury Project Mercury was the first human spaceflight program of the United States, running from 1958 through 1963. An early highlight of the Space Race, its goal was to put a man into Earth orbit and return him safely, ideally before the Soviet Un ...
, and all subsequent man-in-space projects until the ground station network was replaced by the
TDRS A tracking and data relay satellite (TDRS) is a type of communications satellite that forms part of the Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) used by NASA and other United States government agencies for communications to and fr ...
communication satellites in the 1990s. Philco's Western Development Labs ultimately became
Space Systems/Loral SSL, formerly Space Systems/Loral, LLC (SS/L), of Palo Alto, California, is a wholly owned manufacturing subsidiary of Maxar Technologies. SSL designs and builds satellites and space systems for a wide variety of government and commercial cust ...
, which continues to manufacture spacecraft. In later years, the company produced automotive electronic controls, aerospace tracking systems, and artificial satellites. In 1963, Philco was also responsible for the design, manufacturing, installation, and service of all the consoles used in both Mission Operations Control Rooms (a.k.a. Mission Control) at Building 30 of NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. Philco technical representatives worked with NASA staff to design and integrate the consoles with NASA hardware and systems. The consoles were used for the Gemini,
Apollo Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label=Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label= ...
,
Skylab Skylab was the first United States space station, launched by NASA, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three separate three-astronaut crews: Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4. Major operations ...
, and
Space Shuttle The Space Shuttle is a retired, partially reusable low Earth orbital spacecraft system operated from 1981 to 2011 by the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) as part of the Space Shuttle program. Its official program n ...
missions until 1998. The Philco-designed and installed consoles in Mission Control 2 at the Johnson Space Center have been preserved and will be restored to their Apollo-era configuration for historical purposes. The control room is now listed in the National Register of Historic Places as the "Apollo Mission Control Center".


Water purification systems

In 1971, Philco-Ford began to sell
reverse osmosis Reverse osmosis (RO) is a water purification process that uses a partially permeable membrane to separate ions, unwanted molecules and larger particles from drinking water. In reverse osmosis, an applied pressure is used to overcome osmotic ...
-based water purification systems that used tube-shaped membranes developed by the company to filter and desalinate raw polluted water for municipal utilities and manufacturing.


Demise

On December 11, 1961,
Ford Motor Company Ford Motor Company (commonly known as Ford) is an American multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Dearborn, Michigan, United States. It was founded by Henry Ford and incorporated on June 16, 1903. The company sells automobi ...
purchased Philco and continued to offer consumer products, computer systems and defense related projects. The company, which had supplied Ford with some of its car radios as early as the 1930s, continued to provide Ford with car and truck radio receivers; consumer product investments were also made to color television production. Along with color and black and white television, Philco continued to produce refrigerators, washers, dryers, air conditioners, stoves, radios, portable transistor radios, portable phonographs, audio console systems with high quality "Mastercraft" furniture cabinets, and component stereo systems. The company branded Philco products as "Philco-Ford" in 1966, and console stereo systems reached their zenith during 1966 and 1967, with high quality cabinet construction and powerful stereo chassis systems of 100- and 300-watt consoles. Philco at one time was one of the largest furniture producers in the world, but the end was near for "high quality" furniture cabinets along with stereo equipment. Solid wood cabinets with veneers were replaced with cheaper wood composites covered in vinyl paper and plastic wood pieces. The quality electronic systems that had been built in the United States were replaced with new designs and systems, engineered and built at a plant owned by Philco-Taiwan. Eventually, all consumer electronic goods would be made by Philco-Taiwan, to lower costs of production and be more competitive in the market. The prevailing industry trend was to move consumer electronic manufacturing to Asia in order to lower the cost of labor and production, and Philco-Ford was no exception to this movement. Heavy consumer goods (major appliances) such as refrigerators, air conditioners and washer-dryers continued to be built in the United States, along with television receivers. Ford dropped the computer business a few years into its owership of the company. In 1973, a complete line of breakthrough refrigerators was introduced, consisting of eight side-by-side "Cold Guard" models, which used about one-third less electricity than comparable competitive makes. But by January of 1974, Ford was eager to rid itself of the home products in Philco's lines, which was not doing well. Negotiations with appliance maker White Consolidated Industries (WCI) started in January, but were called off in March. By September, Ford and GTE Sylvania – Philco's largest competitor – announced the sale of the non-automotive parts of the business, with the exception of the new refrigerator range, which Ford also kept. The deal closed on December 11. In 1977, GTE sold Philco International to earlier suitor White Consolidated Industries. (In 1986, WCI was bought by
AB Electrolux Electrolux AB () is a Swedish multinational home appliance manufacturer, headquartered in Stockholm. It is consistently ranked the world's second largest appliance maker by units sold, after Whirlpool. Electrolux products sell under a variety ...
.) The company (as well as the Sylvania brand name) was acquired from GTE by
Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), commonly shortened to Philips, is a Dutch multinational conglomerate corporation that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, it has been mostly headquartered in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarters is ...
in 1981 so that Philips could gain the rights to use its trademark in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...
. Philco had been able to keep Philips from using its trademark because of the similar-sounding names, so Philips had sold its products in the United States under the name "
Norelco Norelco is the American brand name for electric shavers and other personal care products made by the Consumer Lifestyle division of Philips. For personal care products marketed outside the United States, Philips used the Philishave trademark ...
". Philips later used the Philco name for promotional consumer electronics and licensed the name for private brands and retro-style consumer electronics. Philips also licensed the Philco brand name to
Funai is a Japanese consumer electronics company headquartered in Daitō, Osaka. Apart from producing its own branded electronic products, it is also an OEM providing assembled televisions and video players/recorders to major corporations such as S ...
for digital converter boxes for analog TVs in the USA. As of September 2019, the US website is no longer functioning.


Non-U.S. branding

In
Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
, Philco (then Philco-Hitachi) was acquired in 1989 by Itautec, becoming Itautec-Philco and in August 2005 Itautec sold Philco to Gradiente. In August 2007, Gradiente sold the brand to a group of investors, who intended to license the brand to Brazilian appliance maker Britânia. In 2003, the Merloni Group acquired rights to the Philco brand (from Philco International) for use in
Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...
.AntonioMerloni.it
The Italian Philco produces household appliances in affiliation with ex-
Bendix Corporation Bendix Corporation is an American manufacturing and engineering company which, during various times in its existence, made automotive brake shoes and systems, vacuum tubes, aircraft brakes, aeronautical hydraulics and electric power systems, ...
and Thorn EMI Moyor Electronics (e.g. Bendix 71258 1000 automatic washing machine 1986). As of 2006, the company is mainly recognised in
Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands. With an area of , Australia is the largest country by ...
. In
Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest ...
, in March 2004, Philco was acquired by a group of Argentine investors. The presence of Philco in Argentina dates since 1930 and remains a traditional mark of appliances in this country. It currently manufactures refrigerators by Helametal Catamarca S.A. (Philco Argentina). All the line electronics, LCD TV, Car Stereos, Air Conditioning, MWO, Audio & DVD, is represented by Newsan SA SANYO and DatandHome SA, with the line of washing machines, dishwashers, air conditioning, water heaters, also the same group. In
Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...
, the brand belongs t
Fuji Corp S.A
, a company that markets speakers, headphones, accessories for audio, TV and telephony, as well as appliances and electrical items, under this brand.


See also

*''
The Philco Television Playhouse ''The Philco Television Playhouse'' is an American television anthology series that was broadcast live on NBC from 1948 to 1955. Produced by Fred Coe, the series was sponsored by Philco. It was one of the most respected dramatic shows of the Golde ...
''


References


External links

*
A brief history of Philco

The Internet's Leading PHILCO Resource with comprehensive history and photo gallery sections as well as on online forum devoted to Philco

Everything for the Philco antique radio collector and restorer

Online community of former Philco Tech Reps

PhilcoRadio.com

Video: Philco's Early Computers
{{Philips Electronics companies of the United States Battery manufacturers Consumer electronics brands Electrolux Ford Motor Company Philips History of radio History of television Manufacturing companies based in Pennsylvania American companies established in 1892 Electronics companies established in 1892 1892 establishments in Pennsylvania American brands Defunct computer hardware companies Radio manufacturers