RCA Victor French Provincial TV and Stereo Console, c. 1960–1969

The Piece

An RCA Victor home entertainment console of the 1960s, the three-in-one cabinet that combined a television, an AM/FM stereo radio and a record changer in a single piece of furniture for the family room. The cabinet is in the French Provincial manner that RCA offered alongside its Danish Modern and Early American lines: a long low case in a warm fruitwood finish with a scalloped apron, short cabriole feet and a pair of fabric-filled doors with shaped cutouts and small brass pulls that conceal the speakers. The Nipper trademark, the terrier at the gramophone horn, is set into the underside of the left lid.

The layout is the classic one. The left lid lifts to reveal the record changer with its turntable and tone arm. The right lid lifts over the radio tuner and controls and a record storage well, still holding a stack of albums. The television sits at the center behind a framed bezel, with its channel and volume controls to the right of the screen, and the two speaker doors flank it below the lids. The case is clean, the finish is even, the lids open and close on their hinges, the fabric grilles are unworn, and the brass pulls are present.

Everything works. The television, the radio and the record changer have all been run and perform as they should, which is unusual for a console of this age and the reason this one is worth having. The television is a tube set of its period and receives modern broadcast and streaming sources through a converter box, which is how it was tested. The piece is in remarkably clean condition with none of the grime or damage that console electronics pick up in a garage, and it has plainly spent its life indoors in a well kept house.

History & Provenance

RCA Victor sold the combination television, stereo and phonograph console through the 1960s as the top of its home entertainment line, a single cabinet that replaced three appliances and was styled to pass as furniture. The French Provincial version, with its fruitwood finish, scalloped skirt and cabriole feet, was aimed at the traditional living room, and the record changer and tuner under lift lids, with the television between them and speakers behind fabric doors, was the standard RCA arrangement of the decade. The Nipper badge under the lid is the mark of the RCA Victor brand as it was used until the corporation dropped the Victor name at the end of the 1960s.

The model and serial plate inside the cabinet will confirm the exact year, and the piece is offered as a 1960s RCA Victor French Provincial combination pending that number. The dating rests on the cabinet style, the badge and the television tube rather than style alone. It came to us from the same source as a group of carved golden oak furniture of the turn of the century, each piece of which is offered separately.

Product Details

Why It Belongs in Your Home

A working 1960s console is the rare vintage electronic that is both a piece of furniture and a thing you actually use. This one plays records, pulls in the radio and runs a picture on a real tube, and it does all of that from a cabinet that looks like a sideboard. It belongs in a den, a rec room, a bar or a bedroom wall where a modern television would be an eyesore, and it is a natural for a hospitality space, a retail floor or a photography set that wants a period television that lights up. For a shop or designer client it is the complete, clean, fully working RCA Victor combination, which is a different animal from the usual dead console with a cracked lid.