The N.Z. Vintage Radio Project

The Chromadyne name first appeared in a press release on the 4th of September 1929, in relation to the Christchurch-based discovery by Mr Gordon Percy Aston (electro-chemist) of "a force 10 times more powerful than electricity" which allowed, he claimed, transmutation of metals into gold - this force (farce?) was named chromadyne.

By March the following year no further solid evidence that chromadyne did anything at all had been provided to the public, but a company called Chromadyne Ltd was registered with £10,000 capital in £1 shares.  Herbert Walter Atack, solicitor (Christchurch): 8000 shares, William Henry Shaw Highes, solicitor (Wellington): 1000 shares, Walter Seddon Clayton, company manager (Christchurch - sporting goods store in Cashel St): 1000 shares.  G. P. Aston was noted as their 'principal experimenter'.

The claims of Aston had been investigated by Dr. E. Marsden, secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) but the results of his inquiry were never released.

A notice on the 13th of January 1931, less than a year later, showed that Chromadyne Ltd was in voluntary liquidation.  Nothing further appears in the news until the 7th of October 1931 where an article in the Poverty Bay Herald shows that Aston now had created a magic radio with properties never before seen.  With that a new comapny, Electric Elements Ltd, was formed to deal in radio and electrical.  That article is transcribed here:

NEW RADIO INVENTION

CHRISTCHURCH MAN'S CLAIM A NEW USE FOR CHROMADYNE 

Though the world is talking of going off the gold standard, the Christchurch goldmakers, whose sensational claims were made public over a year ago, says the Sun, have not gone out of business. They still claim to be making synthetic gold, but in their experiments with the magic power of chromadyne, they claim to have evolved, through its use, a radio receiving set with revolutionary features.

A reporter visited the asbestos-lined, and extensively-wired, room where Mr. G. P. Aston experiments with chromadyne and where he says 11.6 carat gold, highly magnetic, and uniform in quality, is produced. This production is put through a special process to preserve its atomic weight.

But it was of the radio set which Mr. Aston desired mostly to talk. He said that a company with a capital of £5000, called Electric Elements, Ltd., had been formed and would place a set on the market at considerably less cost than anything else on the market to-day.

It is an A.C. radio set without a power pack. It is of eight valves, and has a full chromadyne wiring diagram. Through carrying no power-pack, a transformer is unnecessary. Screen grid receiving tubes are used, and Osram valves are installed. Mr. Aston says that through the use of chromadyne, radio reception will be revolutionised. With the completed set he says he has received stations all over the world by day or night; the selection is greater, and static has been cut down to a minimum, with further experiments in train in that direction.

Mr. Aston says that the set works best on a 5ft. aerial, and requires no earth. The whole secret lies in two crystal tubes, and he claims that it is not necessary to patent the set, because the tubes which are substituted for the power pack cannot be reconstructed if taken down. He challenges anyone to monkey with the tubes and obtain results afterwards. A two years’ guarantee will be given with the set, and the tubes will be guaranteed for 30 years. All the parts will be of English or New Zealand manufacture.

In the power-house which is away from what Mr Aston calls the "gold room", are four 25 k.w. 32 volt generators running at 500 revolutions a minute.

"The whole chromadyne plant," he said, "is running on a 600 volt circuit, and there is not a transformer in the building. The gold-making plant uses 46,000 watts and the voltage from the power-house is 32 volts. That is what we are doing with chromadyne."

Electric Elements Ltd was registered on November 16 1930 with £1000 capital in £1 shares.  Subscribers: Tahunanui-Nelson - E. J. Mills 50, Christchurch - H. M. Chrystall 50, G. P. Aston 900.  Objects: Radio dealers in all its branches, electrical dealers and incidental.

Not much further is heard until the 16th of February 1940, when a fraud case against Aston and Chrystall was outlined in the Gisborne Herald - they were jointly charged with having defrauded Hartley Roy Sellers of about £6765.  In one article regarding this trial a witness, Ian Burns Cromb of Christchurch - managing director of Cash Radio (Southland) and Cash Radio (Westland), said that Aston had half the shares in both companies since May 1939.  This aligns time-wise with the Chromadyne brand radios which appear to have been made by Cash Radio.

Aston was declared bankrupt and his assets seized by the courts in November 1940.  He was sentenced to imprisonment for 5 years.

The Press, 8th May 1945 there is a notice of Aston having sought discharge of his Bankruptcy however the judge in the matter stated he was devoid of business morality and a grave menace to the trading community and refused.

Another thoroughly disreputable scoundrel in the radio industry of New Zealand.