RCA-Victor Berkshire Breakfront

In 1948, RCA-Victor produced an instrument intended to be the flagship of the company's line and the finest combination instrument available to the American public. The Berkshire series, named after the famous Tanglewood music festivals, was produced in five cabinet styles. These styles were:

The Berkshire Secretary (85" high) with radio and phonograph

The Berkshire Modern (45" high by 65" wide, 435 lbs) with radio and phonograph

The Berkshire Contemporary (44" high by 40" wide, 21" deep) with radio and phonograph

The Berkshire Regency (52" high by 72" wide, 545 lbs) with radio, phonograph and TV

The Berkshire Breakfront (94" high by 76" wide, 715 lbs) with radio, phonograph and TV

The radio used was a special RCA design exclusive to these instruments. Like all classic radios of this period, the chassis of the radio was beautifully chrome plated. The TV used in the top two models was RCA's projection TV unit providing a large 15" by 20" picture. This instrument was truly the ultimate home entertainment center of 1948, and the forerunner of today's home theater.

In the photograph below, the projection TV screen is visible behind the center glass doors. The large speaker chamber is above the TV. Tambour doors could be drawn in front of the screen to conceal the TV, or curtains could be placed behind the glass in the doors to disguise the true purpose of the immense cabinet. The chassis for the television was behind the dummy drawers in the lower part of the cabinet. The beautiful chrome plated tuner and amplifier chassis are shown in the middle photo.

The model pictured, the Berkshire Breakfront, had a cabinet made by Baker, an old name in fine furniture. The cabinet used for the RCA set was a modification of a classic china cabinet that had been in the Baker line for years. The standard Baker cabinet is shown in the bottom picture. The Berkshire cabinet was made exclusively for RCA, and while it looked nearly identical to the stock Baker cabinet, it was in fact substantially different. It was considerably deeper than the standard cabinet in order to house the large TV chassis and other electronics. The standard cabinet had a small desk and drawers in the center section, while the RCA cabinet had dummy drawers in this section since the projection TV chassis occupied the entire center section of the lower cabinet. The upper center section housed the TV screen, controls and the large speaker. For these reasons, the RCA set offered very little storage space for china or books. Only the two small upper side cabinets had space for extras. These side cabinets were not deep enough to hold records, although there was a small area for record storage under the turntable behind the lower left door.

After RCA introduced the 45 RPM record, an auxiliary record changer was offered in a finely finished wooden box to complement the Berkshire cabinet.

The West Coast retail price of this instrument when new was $4300.