That’s Auburn Street. I'd never heard of it (but there’s lots of streets I’ve never heard of even in my long life time - So I had a look at it out of curiosity. I’d best describe it as “modest”. In 1937 it was an average place - probably going on 10 years old. My parent’s place was about the same sort of thing at that time. We lived on 16th Avenue South, which is about 3 miles to the East. In St Petersburg all streets run North/South and all avenues run East/West.
Did you have a purpose in detailing what the property is worth?
I was reading about Betty here in the forum where she identified a picture of a Zenith Model 1000Z as the one her father owned. (The radio that she was using to receive messages from AE.) And immediately I questioned the worth of this house because of my view of it . I checked the web for the Zenith Stratosphere model 1000Z. The Model 1000Z was introduced in 1935 and sold for $750.00! It was the state-of-the-art (and probably the reason why TIGHAR took her at her word because it enhances the possibility the reception is true.) The receiver was so pricey that it took Zenith 3 years to sell the 350 that were manufactured! I checked the inflation factor on this amount - that’s $11,969.53 in today’s money for a radio. The 1935 Chevrolet sold for $600.00! It could be the truth that it was a Model 1000Z that she was using, but in a house of this value? Using the inflation checker for your current value for the house of $34,000.00 works out to about $4,000.00 in 1937.
I still believe Betty’s notes, but not using a Zenith 1000Z. . I remember during WW2 that I played around with my family’s Philco radio that was similar looking to the Zenith - had the green “magic-eye” for fine tuning. Not knowing any better, I thought it worked fine - but it must have been junk compared with a $750.00 Zenith Model 1000Z!
You saw where I was going with this.
By my calculation,
using the Consumer Price Index, the conversion factor for July 1937 to June 2012 is 15.8 so their house was only worth about $2,100 and maybe less due to the depression at the time.
Yep, can you imagine what Mrs. Klenck had to say to Mr. Klenck
"YOU DID WHAT!.
YOU SPENT A THIRD OF THE VALUE OF OUR HOUSE FOR A STUPID RADIO!
YOU COULD HAVE PUT TWO CARS IN OUR DRIVEWAY FOR THAT $750!
WITH THAT MONEY WE COULD HAVE MOVED INTO A MUCH NICER HOUSE!
DON'T YOU REMEMBER WE ARE IN A DEPRESSION!"Betty didn't remember what kind of radio her father had until the TIGHAR people convinced her it was a Zenith Stratosphere. They did this because it was necessary for Brandenburg's harmonic theory which showed the only possible frequency that Betty could have heard Earhart on was 24,840 kcs and only the Stratosphere and a very few other very high priced radios covered frequencies above 20,000 kcs. The Stratosphere had "BAND 5" covering above 20,000 kcs while almost all other shortwave radios only went up to "Band 4." It took Zenith three years to sell 350 of those radios, after Rockefeller, Kennedy, J.P. Morgan, Hearst, Astor, Hughes, Gable and a few others bought their Stratospheres that market reached saturation. To put this in perspective, in 1929 4,000,000 new radios were sold and even in the depression, in 1932, they sold 2,600,000 radios. The average price for a radio in 1933 was only $47.00, you could buy 15 of them for the price of one Stratosphere.
I have attached an excerpt from the January 1938 issue of the "Radio Index." It shows that most shortwave radios only covered up to 18,000 kcs and some expensive ones went up to the 13 meter band which only goes up to 21,850 kcs which is still well below the 24,840 kcs of Brandenburg's theory.
You could buy almost two cars for the price of one Stratosphere. Some examples:
1936 Nash four-door sedan -- $475
1937 Studebaker Cruising sedan -- $475
1937 Ford sedan, two-door -- $395
1936 Plymouth two-door -- $375
1936 Dodge 2-door touring sedan -- $365
1936 Ford "Fordor" sedan -- $359
"Last week the Social Security Board announced that for 30,165,694 U. S. wage earners on its rolls during 1937 average pay was $890 a year." Time Magazine, April 17, 1939. It would take almost a full year's wages of an average worker in 1937 to buy the radio that TIGHAR claims that Betty had! The Klenck house and the neighborhood were not that of a wealthy family so even if Mr. Klenck earned a bit more than the average worker (and we have no reason to believe that) it would still have taken almost all of his year's income to buy that radio and TIGHAR expects us to believe this bunk! As my kid would say, "I don't think so."
I think is was quite clever of Ric to come up with his story, that Mr. Klenck's employer, the electric company, subsidised the purchase of electric appliances for their employees so that those employees would use more electricity. Let's try that business model. Should the electric company buy
one radio for Mr. Klenck who will then use one unit of electric power or should the company buy
15 radios for the same price and reward 15 different employees who will then use 15 units of electricity? Boy, what a tough business decision? O.K. as the president of the electric company my decision is that we go with the second plan.
So, it appears that facts and logic lead to the reasonable conclusion that Betty
did not have a radio that could receive 24,840 kcs so it was impossible for her to have heard Earhart as Brandenburg claims.
gl