The N.Z. Vintage Radio Project

The first advertising for the Royal Radio Engineering Company Ltd, owners and manufacturers of the Royal radio brand, appeared in the Waikato Times in late 1933.  It also showed they were local agents for the Goode radio cabinet line.  G. C. Goode was one of the larger manufacturers of cabinets in New Zealand and so it is likely that all examples of Royal sets will be in a Goodes cabinet.

Harold Arthur Larsen attended Hamilton Technical College and was a 1st grade electrical engineer, having passed London City and Guilds exams in 1929.  His partner, a Mr Bamford, was the salesperson for the company.

Waikato Times, 13 December 1933

It was followed by this advert, which would have been relatively expensive for a small company.

 

It all seems to have ended with this notice in the Waikato Times, dated the 13th of March 1935, which details the end of a promising new brand in the New Zealand market.

 

Harold Larsen was later noted as being in trouble for selling radios without a licence, and then in 1938 started Larsens Radio Service (at least, that is when advertising begins to appear in the Waikato Times), which advertised regularly until late 1945.  Based on some other articles that appear in the Times, Mr Larsen also seems to have been quite the photographer.