Lowest surviving AR-1 serials?

[administrator]

Hello All,

A quick question from your behind-the-scenes administrator... does anyone happen to know what the lowest surviving AR-1 serials are? I recently heard about an AR-1 with a serial <50, and I'm wondering how much effort and cash should be put into rescuing it.

Thanks!

Mark

[DavidR]

For a comparison there's a nice looking pair for sale on Craig's List in Nashua NH for $3999 with s/n 0633 and  06638.

[JeffS]

Hello Mark,

From what I've seen come up for sale publicly in the last almost 20 years, only two have serial numbers below 50.

#0006 - the earliest known survivor, which is well documented here and was owned by Tom Tyson for many years.

#0018 - sold on eBay, along with #0196, back in 2008.

Here's a list of units up to #0196:

 

Interestingly, as you may know, #147 is a prototype unit that was owned by Julian Hirsch. It is the first AR-1 to have the breakout woofer connection so that the unit could be tested as both an AR-1 and AR-1W without having to deal with one of each, and it allowed future buyers to add the then new Janszen electrostatic tweeter to the system in place of the 755A.

If you look at the list you can see that #0071 and #0074 have the breakout woofer connection with what looks like earlier serial numbers, but that doesn't make sense. My "shoot from the hip" guess is that #147, which is, I believe, the only known AR-1 with a 3-digit serial number, may be #47 with a 1 prefix to denote it as a prototype unit. That would make for three survivors under serial number 50, though my theory will likely never be verified.

Anyhow, I hope that the unit you've heard about is a new discovery. They definitely don't come up for sale very often!

[administrator]

Thanks guys! This information is very helpful. I looked at photos again and it's actually serial number 0079, I'm not sure why I thought it was <50. (Possibly a blurry photo)

 

Mark