Vacuum Radio Tube, R.H. Goddard Type

This is a Collins oscillator radio tube made by the Arthur A. Collins of the Collins Radio Company and based on a design developed by the American rocket pioneer Dr. Robert H. Goddard and patented by him in 1912. In addition to rocketry, radio technology was another interest of Goddard. From 1936, he permitted Collins to use his oscillator patent and accepted only a modest consultant's fee.

Goddard did not consider his osiclllator patent among his most important invertions. Yet the tube was essential in the development of radio and electronics and could have made him a millionaire. The tube was donated to the Smithsonian in 1965 by Mrs. Robert H. Goddard.