Several of the radios are old enough that they have cabinets made from wood. Nobody manufactures consumer electronics from natural materials any more, so they are kind of neat in that way. I guess I'm a bit old fashioned. I love natural wood (even if it's just a veneer), as well as the warm orange glow of vacuum tubes.
I don't turn the old radios on - although they all work. These things are wasteful of electricity, and AM radio is pretty desolate nowadays... But old stuff makes me happy, so I surround myself with it. I thought I'd share some of that - and maybe it will give you a warm vacuum tube glow as well.
All of these are tabletop radios with superheterodyne AM receivers. One of them has the ability to tune in a couple of shortwave bands as well as standard AM.
For a change, I'm putting descriptions below the images. First up, and probably the least cute:
This is a small and cute, but nondescript-looking radio. The fit and finish on these was a bit rough - the wood cut-outs aren't well sanded. "Airline" radios were manufactured by a number of different companies, and sold by retailer Montgomery Ward, all under the name "Airline". The manufacturer of this particular model was the Belmont Radio Corp. in Chicago.
This also is a cute and inexpensive radio. For a cathedral, it's pretty ordinary. Fit and finish is OK but not awesome. It does have a nice backlit tuning dial. This was refurbished at some point prior to my owning it. It had been in the home of a smoker when I picked it up, and it stunk badly. I haven't given the radio a sniff lately, but it at least you no longer notice the odor when you enter the room.
This one is a bit cooler than the previous two radios, for a couple of reasons. First, it has six push-buttons that allow you to pre-select your favorite AM radio stations. You pre-set the buttons with a screwdriver inside the radio, which is sketchy if you don't know what you are doing. Nowadays you would be lucky to find one or two good AM radio stations, so six pre-sets is excessive today. The second reason this radio is a bit nicer than the previous radios is the dial face is larger and has a nice pattern embossed in it. The "cool factor" of the dial seems to have a have a HUGE impact on the price of an antique radio. If it is either large or unusual, the radio will usually fetch a very high price. This dial is neither particularly large or unusual, but it is pretty cool in design.
Manufactured by Mission Bell Radio, Inc of Los Angeles, for Sears Roebuck
This radio is probably my favorite - it's a box with all the Art Deco bells and whistles. Sweet curves, "streamliner" terracing, a large lighted gold terraced dial for each radio band, and a nice green tuning eye. It really is a beautiful radio, and has a very nice finish. What's not to love?
Another Crosley, manufactured in Cincinnati. This is the oldest radio in my collection. I love this radio mainly for the reason that just glancing at it makes you think "holy smokes, that's an old radio!". Unfortunately the quality of this one leaves a lot to be desired. While most of the other manufacturers were using wood and quality parts inside, this one has a crinkle finish sheet metal cabinet, and the tuner is set in pot metal. Pot metal is pretty weak stuff that corrodes and cracks easily. Many of these Gembox radios have lost the ability to move the tuner. A better radio of this style might be an Atwater-Kent Model 20 or a Radiola Model 17, in a wood cabinet. I may pick one up at some point.
This is the newest, and least favorite of the bunch. I'm not a huge fan of plastic, bakelite, or mid-century modern design - it looks pretty bland to me. I bought this very recently as an inexpensive project, to see if I had the ability to get an old radio to work. Turns out that yes I can, and yes I did. It's not a bad radio, but it's also nothing special. I keep it on display in the shop.
Aside from that final bakelite Zenith, I've owned the others for nearly two decades. But there is a new radio that will be coming into the stable soon. Bigger is better, or so I've heard - so I'm going to pick up a radio in a cabinet that won't fit on a tabletop. This will be a console.
For a very long time, I've had a desire to own an old Zenith console radio with the huge black tuner dial, like the one in the image below:
I found a local example of a Zenith for sale that is perfect: It doesn't work, so the price is great, and the cabinet is in pristine condition, so I won't have to put tens of hours into restoring the finish.
This is the 1936 Zenith 6-S-52, manufactured in Chicago. It has pretty cool Art Deco lines, some great veneer inlay, plus that beautiful big black dial. No tuning eye on this model, alas.
It should be a snap to get working, as the circuit is pretty simple. Schematic (pdf) here.
There are a couple of other cool old items in the office.
Above: 1920's era Royal Typewriter Model 10. It's kinda cool because it has beveled glass sides, and you can watch the innards move. When I first spotted this, it was in an antique store. A stupid unsupervised kid was banging on the keys several at a time, making the hammers stick together on this neat machine. I bought it at the time, mainly to prevent that knucklehead (or some other one) from causing permanent damage. I may at some point go through it and clean and service it, then buy some ribbon for it.
In video below, this guy explains several features on the typewriter, and then punches out several lines on it at the end - he goes pretty fast, considering the process is 100% manual. It's a very cool and complex machine. It's amazing the ingenuity that went into doing "word processing" mechanically!
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