New Wireless Pioneers

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	What's New Baby Alex! We'd like to welcome the newest addition to the Kreuzer family, Alex Shields, born August 6th, at 7 lbs, 8 oz!

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NWP Catalog

Currently the New Wireless Pioneers are working on stepping up to the technological age and producing an online catalog of books and other items for sale, as opposed to the previous paper catalogs. Look for updates on the home page!

About Us

The Story of The New Wireless Pioneers

It all began back in 1963 at age 10 when my father took me to a "White Elephant" Sale at an old church in downtown Buffalo. The first thing I noticed when I walked down the basement stairs was a Model 89 Philco Cathedral radio. There was a spark that told me i should get that old set & take it home to tinker with! So I asked how much it was & the elderly lady said 25 Cents! That's all I had at the time & I decided to shoot the works & grab it!!

Well, that old set worked fine without any help from me! My father began to take me & my brother to auctions & I began to drag home old radio's while my brother concentrated on Televisions. Our landlord permitted me to set up a workshop in the basement & I began to read & learn all I could on electronics. In 1967 I was rewarded with being the only student in my grade to attend a new 3 year course on Technical Electronics at a Boces Center, so I spent one half of my school day doing the thing I loved the most- playing with electrons!!

All through High School I bought every early radio that appeared & began filling up the house & basement. While I taught myself all about vacuum tube electronics, I really didn't seem to care about the new-fangled integrated circuit, or solid state electronics. After High School I got my first job repairing "Lear Jet" 8-Track Tape Players in a shop & installing them when there wasn't much to fix. after a couple of months of this I grew tired of dealing with 8- Tracks, so when I was offered a job on the Railroad as a mechanic I jumped at the chance. It was at this time that my interest in Electronics waned & I took a keen interest in Girls & Drag Racing!!

After a 4 year hiatus my girlfriend and I lived near an antique shop & went in to look for some furniture for our house, when I spied an early ham set on the floor- I asked how much & they said $15- so I was on my way into collecting again, this time with a National SW-5 to put on the shelf! So from 1974 - 1975 Felicia and I scoured the flea markets and auctions in search of 1920's battery sets. When we attended our first AWA National meet in 1975 we began to take notice of the rare wireless receivers, produced before 1920. We decided that it would be neater if we collected radios that were seldom seen in collections, so that our collection would be unique. We began to trade our Federals, Grebes, Paragons, AK and other name brand sets for early Marconi, DeForest,Wireless Specialty, Nesco, and United Wireless Companies.

It was lucky that we both had good paying jobs, as these sets sometimes cost a lot of money to acquire & we were pretty lucky at finding them! By 1985 we had put together a substantial collection & library of rare books on wireless. In February 1985 I was injured in a derailment on the Railroad & my doctor stated that I wouldn't work another day at my job- he said to find another line of work.

It didn't take me long to decide to make my life-long love of early radio my job! So in 1985 Felicia, now my wife, suggested "New Wireless Pioneers" as a business name, and I agreed saying that it was well in line with our object of supplying the radio collecting community with early radios. We began by advertising for collections & were rewarded with some incredible receivers & horns, including one estate from Erie Pa. consisting of over 650 radios, many of them home-brews and 150 horns! In 1985 I was contacted by the widow of a radio bookseller, Mrs. A.D. Santomasso & she wished to sell her husband's stock of books as well as his rolodex of sources and customers! After purchasing this substantial business, we were well on our way to becoming regular bookdealers! In August 1986 we published our first catalog of old radio & electrical books.

An ad in the now-extinct "Antiquarian Bookman" magazine led us to our greatest find- a library of early wireless and electricity books from The Franklin Institute Library that they were deasessioning in 1986. We were fortunate to obtain by sealed bid, 8 lots of rare & early books on Telegraphy, Telephones, Wireless, Light Bulbs, Electricity, Biographies, and other areas of interest. Some of these lots contained as much as 2,000 books!! With this great collection came many duplicates, signed copies, etc.. Not long after the sealed bid auction, we were able to purchase The Franklin Institute Trade Catalog Collection, consisting of over 58,000 trade catalogs in all areas of Science & Technology!!! Well, that put us on a firm footing and ever since we have bought, sold and acquired for our museum the finest early books, ephemera & apparatus available.

We try hard to help our customers find the titles they are looking for- please let us know if there is something we can help you with!

Respectfully, Jim & Felicia Kreuzer N2GHD & KA2GXL

And James Kreuzer, KC2OTK

NEW WIRELESS PIONEERS
1541 BRONSON ROAD
GRAND ISLAND, NY 14072
EMAIL: wireless@pce.net
PHONE: 716-773-4999
FAX: 716-773-5757