Fun
My "crocodiles"
This started about 25 years ago when my friend Eric and I were searching for old BCLs. One day, Eric found a stock of BCLs that we purchased together and decided to share. Among them, one particularly retained my attention due to its green color and "crocodile" pattern applied all arround it, so I decided to take it - for fun - and called it my crocodile. I installed it in my appartment in Clermont-Ferrand where I was studying and started to use it as it was in good condition. This BCL did not have any brand name on it so I was unsure about its origin: commercial source or homemade ?
The story could have ended here when few years later, in a market of various objects, I saw another crocodile. I could not imagine that another one could exist so I immediately purchased it. This second "crocodile" was similar in term of buttons position, color, crocodile patern but had slight differences (magic eye not is the same place for example). Internally, the electronic was very similar.
Over the years, my friend Eric went into a systematic action of collecting antique Ham gear and vintage radio gear in a very historical and scientifical manner, ending up in a wonderfull and clever collection of various equipment typical of beginning of the radio. Just as a joke, I took exactly the opposite way in deciding to collect only the crocodile models. By chance, Eric, who was well in contact with the old radio gear market, found several of them during these years and purchased them for me, my greatfull thanks to him. So far, I own eleven of them and even if they look similar, none of them are strictly identical !
The origin of these BCLs is unknow to me. Here are below some of the brand names that are depicted on six of them (Selecta, Ondax, Phenix, GaiRadio, Manufrance, Zephyradio) but the five others do not have any brand names. The Phenix one has on its back "Phenix Type Bengali". I suppose they were orgininated from the same design and then sold by various manufacturers or suppliers under different brand names.
By the way, any information about the origin of these BCLs would be much appreciated so, if you know more about these "crocodiles", please contact me (see my e-mail address on QRZ.com). Thanks in advance !
