E.F.Johnson variable capacitor information

[WA7URV]

I've got this wierd side interest of collecting variable capacitors.  It almost guarantees a purchase at any hamfest I attend!  It's a sickness, I know.

I've found many interesting pieces, but I have never found information from any of the original manufacturers.  I know it's a total pipe dream that I could find specific data, catalogs, etc from E.F.Johnson, Hammarlund, etc., but I thought I'd throw it out to this group.  The last time I did that, the group came through big time!

I'm particularly interested in information on capacitors from E.F.Johnson.

If you have any ideas on where I could research, please let me know.

73,
Phil Westover, WA7URV
Sherwood, OR

[N3QE]

In the 40's and 50's EF Johnson, Hammarlund, National, Cardwell, Millen, etc., would have ads in QST and essentially a small part of their catalog in the advertising section of each ARRL handbook.

The information was at best summary, but it showed their major capacitor lineups and common capacities/voltage ratings.

More complete sales-based listings showed up in the 50's Radio Shack, Allied, Newark, Burnstein-Applebee's, etc., catalogs.

Many of the above can be found on the web. For example 1951 Radio Shack catalog: http://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/catalogs/1951/ pages 130-132 has National, Millen, and Cardwell capacitors.

Each company also had 3-hole punched pamphlets with more complete and technical listings of their product lines, I had some of these 35 or 40 years ago, but wow that was a long time ago. I'm sure I don't have them anymore.

[K8AXW]

QE pretty well sums it up.  I have several old catalogs in my library that shows the fine caps you're talking about.  It appears to me you're going to have to expand your "sickness" to finding old catalogs and perhaps old ARRL Handbooks.   

Many times these manufacturers put stickers on their caps and in some cases they stamped numbers in the end frames indicating the value.  As for determining one brand from another, that will take a bit more expertise than you'll find here.

[KD0REQ]

curiously, it looks like the successor to E F Johnson capacitors, Cardwell Corp, has changed their name to Viking Technologies.

http://cardwellcondenser.com/PAGES/jcd.html

looks like the old lines are there... .

Johnson sockets etc. became part of Emerson Electric.