My Old Wood Radios
1939 Coronado 504
The Coronado brand of radio was sold in the Gambles stores back in the day of "farm" radios and other wooden case beauties. Farm radios were so called because they run off of a battery system rather than normal "power line" AC power. From what I can detect this radio run off a 6.2 volt dc battery. The case was pretty messed up when I got the radio and the only way to make it look good was to re finnish it. Unfortunately when you do this to a collectable radio it loses it's "collectors" value unless done very professionally ( not an option with me..sand it-stain it-paint it-seal it- looks good and I am happy). I think it is a nice looking old rig. It is of course straight AM broadcast. It is all there, badges, tubes and electronics.
Sideview has kind of a marble effect on top
1942 Philco 42-350
This radio is all there and with the help of some "Howard's" products it is the original stain with the scratches all gone there are a couple of dings in it but I didn't want to do any major sanding and mess up the original finnish nor the near perfect stencil badges. The radio was one of the first Philco that come out with the FM "channel numbers" on it and is also short wave and public services, Amateur and of course standard broadcast
FM band with "FM call numbers" labeled from 21-99 .Those were the official FM channel numbers as specified by the FCC in 1941. The numbers 21 through 99 correspond to the frequency with the 4 and the decimal point deleted (i.e., 421 through 499). The FCC assigned call signs that had the customary W or K, the two-digit channel number, and one or two letters indicating the city. Since Philco didn't sell FM sets until after this scheme was announced, they (and some other makers) decided to use the channel numbers on the dial instead of markings in MHz
1942 Crosley 25-ay
This is my baby, it was given to me and it took me all winter to do it the way I want to. The radio is standard broadcast, short wave foreign broadcast, police, public service and a small portion of the HF ham band. It is all there including the original rotating antenna under the back. I have no clue yet as to if it works. The cabinet has some major issues and will require some removal of venire and re done as well as some sanding and glueing and has one knob missing. It was my 2009/10 winter project. This radio has some importance to me. Although I do not know if this was the actual brand of the radio in which I am about to speak but it was the same "type" , floor model and sw/police/public service and so on.
Back when I was a young boy we had a radio like this. I remember spending hrs upon hrs sitting in front of it and turning knobs and hearing all sorts of stuff from languages I couldn't understand to the law and of course at night KOMA...Olkahoma City, which at that period of time played rock and roll ( not until I become an Amateur Radio op did I understand why I could hear KOMA only at night and not through the day from here in Oregon.) All the local stations here were "mor" stuff and hog reports. Sooner or later my mom would put her foot down and make me shut it off and go to bed ( little did she know I also had a little transistor radio with an ear plug that spent it's nights under the pillow tuned into KOMA as well but it didn't hear it too well plus those 9v batteries didn't last long and took most of my pennies to keep them stocked up). Unfortunately one december day the house burnt down and took everything we had with it. We were in Baker at the time so on the good fortune side we were not harmed. I have always remembered that old radio and I made a statement to a friend of mine how cool it would be to find another one of those. One day Mick called and said he had something to show me and come dragging it in covered with a blue tarp. I knew what it was the second I seen the bottom of it sticking out of the tarp. What I didn't expect was that he said it was mine if I wanted it, no cost.
The sound out of this is so cool, well actually warm. Listening to the old radio programs is fun ( they play them every saturday night at 6pm on the local am station). Shortwave comes in pretty good as well.
THIS ONE BNELOW ISN'T MINE
Here is a late "30s" Sears True Tone farm radio that Mick (a friend of mine) picked up. a little touch up on the cabnit made it look excelent but now we need to get the electrics working.
Just too much fun I tell ya