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Apco Manufacturing Company, Providence took over the Auto Parts Company of Providence on June 1st 1917 with the capitalization of the new company of $200,000 as compared to the $30,000 of the Auto Parts Company. 1
Apco itself was started 8 years earlier by Thomas F Wilson with it's main business being a large line of specialties for Ford cars.
The 1921 3 and 1924 4 Providence House Directories list Apco's address at 1200 Eddy St. In 1924 there were two trademarks granted to Apco for Battery Charges (193,794 - May 17th), Current Rectifiers (204,580 - December 30th) 2 and Battery CHargers (187,885 - August 12th) 8
In the 1925 Rhode Island Radio Fan's handbook, Apco was listed as making Battery Chargers and Apco Rectodyne, a radio battery eliminator.
Boston Globe December 3, 1924.
Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office December 20, 1924.
Also in January of 1925, Apco offered a new subscription of stock, 25,000 shares of Class A stock at $25 a share. 9
In 1926 Apco introduced their own radio set called the Apcoradio. It was a 7 tube set and Apco trademarked "Apcoradio Armored Seven". The set was heavily copper-armored with dual dial control and an equalized tone chamber with built-in cone speaker. It was lamp-socket operated and housed in two styles of floor cabinets. The equipment was entirely Apco even up to the tubes. Apco had recently presented a line of radio tubes.
The Talking Machine World October 15, 1926
The Talking Machine World October 1926
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle October 21, 1926
The Talking Machine World November 26, 1926
On April 3, 1929 Apco leased the space CeCo was using at 1190-1200 Eddy Street.
On June 5, 1931, a verdict was handed sown against APCO to set aside $1259 dollars for Howard R Fuller who was hired by APCO to design a Radio. APCO it seems terminated fuller after 7 months and he wantedto recover pay promised and expenses for moving back to NY
There was a reference to a Apco Radio in the 1977 issue of Electronic Servicing. It is a request for a schematic for a Apco radio that uses 3 199 tubes by John Uscinownski. This could have been the Apco radio or a homebrew set with Apco dials.
Electronic Servicing October 1977
In 1927 the company merged with the Frank Mossberg Company (Founded in 1899), a maker of automotive specialty tools, becoming
The Apco Twin tube was produced by the Apco Manufacturing Co. of Providence, Rhode Island, ca. 1925 5 . We see mention of the tube in a a Radio Broadcast article in July 1926 7 and in an article on new products in August of the same year. 6 .
Bill Condon's discription of the Twin tube is: "The Apco Twin has a single triode section but uses an "M" style filament that is center-tapped. Metal tabs on the base allow selection of either half of the filament, or both halves at once. Using one half resulted in '01A performance. If both halves were used at once, the tube could be used as an output tube."
Then in the "Saga of the Vacuum Tube" book the discription says: "The Apco Twin Tube was made by the Apco Manufacturing Company of Providence, Rhode Island, in the period 1925-1926. It contained two complete sets of 201A-type elements. These were connected in parallel ex-cept for one end of each filament. When the first filament failed, the second one could be brought into service by slightly unscrewing one of the filament prongs so that a switch arm could be moved from one contact to another. This brought the second filament into the circuit. Each filament took 0.25 ampere at 5 volts. The base was of the UX type and the only identification on the tube was an oval black paper label on the glass bulb with the words "Apco Twin Tube." At the left of the trade name "5 volt" and to the right ".25-amp" were printed—all in dark red on the black label."
