Vintage Radio Museum

Hello and thank you for your interest in our Vintage Radio Museum website.

Our Vision​

The Museum project has been in the pipeline for a number of years and originally was born out of my (Graham Hawtree) fascination with valve radios. This started back around 1960 so you can see it has taken some 50 odd years to get to this point. What started out as a fascination turned out over the years to be a desire to help preserve these historic radios.

Without the help of not only my very understanding and supportive wife Val, but also the contribution by several other people, this museum may not have been possible.

 

I would like to acknowledge this invaluable help from the following folk, and to them go our sincere thanks and appreciation – to the late Mr Ray Knowles of Hastings, who had been totally supportive right from day one, to Mr Ian Greaves of Fielding,  to Mr Tim Sanders of Whakatane, to Mr Brian Smith of Foxton, and last but certainly not least, to Mr Noel Bernstein of Kaitaia.

These folk all have not only contributed sets but have also spent considerable time servicing these sets and also restoring some of the cabinets.

 

There are currently approx 500 radios in the collection although not all are on display at any one time, with the collection being rotated. The age of the radio sets range from pre 1920 (battery sets) through to approx. 1950, with the bulk of radios from around 1925 to 1935. The sets have been manufactured  in America, England, Australia and of course New Zealand.

We have constructed a special air conditioned building to house the collection and we look forward to showing interested folk around the Museum. Groups will be most welcome.

 

To arrange a visit, please check out our contact details on this site.