Per Tom Tyson: "These images are of an AR-1, ser. no. 0006, that I came across on eBay. It was out in Palm Springs, California, of all places! I figure that someone took it out to California in the early 50s for school; perhaps it was one of the first of the dealer-demo units in California or something. The imagination runs wild!
In any event, I was stunned, quite frankly, because I thought my old Audio Magazine AR-1, ser. no. 0074, was the oldest! This AR-1, S/N 0006 was one of the first hand-built AR-1's readied for the New York Audio Fair in October, 1954, and would have been hand-made by Henry Kloss (under Villchur's direction) during the late summer of 1954. I know that technically there can only be five units older than this one, and all of these hand-built units were probably built at the same time. There was a lot of conversation about the early days at AR, with Henry Kloss working feverishly to try to complete these first prototypes in time for the October New York Audio Fair (predecessor to the New York High Fidelity Music Show and later the CES)."
