Some thing for Phill

[phil]

its an RCA which means it is common my guess is about 1940 but if there is an ID tag we can look for the schematic sheet for it. it should be well documented.

wiring is a bit torn up . if you see a wire bundle a foot or two long that ends with a tube socket that would be for an eye tube . a 6U5 or similar. common to most radios of the time. its missing one tube not a big issue.

If I packed that thing in to a local radio club meeting I'd have a hard time giving it away because collectors don't get attracted to consoles unless they are fancy and the square boxes tend to be not collectable.

the transformer is huge, that's because it was probably designed for early power, 50 cycle, before they went to AC 120 V 60 cycle they needed big transformers.

the speaker might not be original if it is you will see 4 leads , two for the voice coil, two for the speaker's electrodynamic coil ( magnet) if it is there and original it's probably a fairly big speaker.

note that grey looking paper near the chassis is going to be asbestos and the pile of dust, so dont' breath it in. likely mice have been chewing around it.

I think the style of those tubes is called octals , they probably date to post war. note there are some glass ones and a metal one , the metal tubes are similar just not glass envelopes so you cant' see the metal tubes glow.

If the missing tube is 4 pins it is probably an 80 that was the most common rectifier tube.

If you were compelled to play with it you might be able to get it going it will need some wires replaced, and the capacitors. You'll see the cans above the chassis containing the electrolytic capacitors for the power supply and if you pull the chassis there will be a bunch of cardboard tube type caps, I'd replace all those and check wiring if you plan to power on. I see some cloth wiring there and that's often not so bad. so it might not be a case where all the wires in around the chassis are bad.

It might be fun for someone to play with , fix up and enjoy but I wouldn't get too invested in it because you won't sell this for much in the end. If you wanted to use the cabinet you could use it for a modern stereo or something fun. Its a bit upsetting when people destroy nice collectable antique radios for cabinets but with this I really wouldn't feel upset because its value and collectability is on the low side. maybe in time there will be more value. I often see higher prices asked for things like this on craigslist and you might try but my assumption is you won't get over 20 bucks or so if you sell it.

from a restoration point of view you'd be into it for maybe 100 for parts. If it were me I'd wait for one I liked more to invest restoration time in, but it might be ok for someone who just wanted to wet their hands and do a restoration and then move on to others with more value.

the phono cartridges in those radios do fail so that could be another issue or maybe a part that you'd want to keep should you part with it.
the turntable likely only plays 78's you can check the controls to see if there are other speeds.
the eye tubes might go for 30 bucks or so on craigslist. they are affected by sunlight , they are actually little cathode ray tubes like a TV and the phosphorous coating fades , it might still work, a new one would burn with a brighter green glow. Its used for tuning the stations as it gives you a visual indication of where the signal is strongest. the eye tube will be common to other radios of the time. if it's there it will sit behind the dial face and be mounted from behind.

the big antenna can be used with other radios. You can either use that or string a wire up outside to get more stations.
it will surely have short wave and the buttons are to be adjusted for local stations so you push a button and that flips the tuner to that station. the station number tags will probably still have the station numbers on them, that might give you an indication if it is local , probably is.
those notes are just from what my gut tells me. someone else might see more in it and restore it and feel it's really a cool piece and I wouldn't discourage that. If you need cash you might try just posting the tubes and antenna and eye tube, knobs together on ebay and you might get a few bucks. Hard to sell otherwise, but that's just one opinion.

because it doesn't look like a radio when closed up it might make a nice cabinet for dishes and whatnot or a more modern strerio.

If you did restore it it would be fine and you could listen to it and it's nice warm tube sound daily. from an economic standpoint it isn't yet worth the time of restoration restoration because it is hard to make money on stuff like this but a lot depends on timing and venue. Maybe that will change and others may disagree on value. It can be restored if you like it, most of it is the time to replace a bit of wiring and caps, rub some oil on the cabinet and wipe it clean and it'll look nice. there aren't too many radios that close right up and look like a sideboard or something so maybe that is an attractive aspect.

[1918ColonialRevival]

Your set looks like an RCA V-225, which is a 1941 model. More information can be found here:

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/rca_v225_1.html

It was about middle of the road in terms of quality for the time. Not top of the line, but not an entry level set, either.

A few comments about this set. First, the dial scale appears to have some loss of the lettering. I can almost guarantee this one is not reproduced, so you would have to try to find another original from a junker set. Not impossible since this set isn't rare, but it may take a while to track one down.

Restoration of the radio chassis should be straightforward. All paper and electrolytic capacitors will need to be replaced, which is standard in electronics of this vintage. Also, be advised there may be some deteriorated wiring in the set. Between 1939 and 1941, most US radio manufacturers switched from wiring with cloth insulation to wiring with rubber insulation. Rubber wiring has not aged well and is often found with insulation that has dry-rotted and is cracking and chipping off. This wiring will need to be re-sleeved or replaced. Not especially tough to do, but it takes time.

Finally, the one thing not in this set's favor is that it's a side-by-side console. There are only a few side-by-sides that collectors find desirable and those are all high-end sets. The only reason I bring this up is because if you restore it, realize that it will be a labor of love and there's not a lot of monetary value there. It will be a good performing set and will receive broadcast (AM) and shortwave signals with an appropriate antenna. The phono will almost certainly need to be cleaned, lubricated, and the cartridge rebuilt. This phono will only play 78 rpm records. LPs didn't come out until 1948 and 45s came out in 1949.

The stuffing you see in the record storage area is an old mouse nest.

[phil]

I agree with the above. here is the schematic, You could compare to that and check if the tube layout seems similar and if the phono looks the same. also there may be some rubber idler wheels on the phono and any rubber parts will be hardened up.
But its really a basic mechanical device, the motor might need some lube etc.
http://www.nostalgiaair.org/pagesbymode ... 015925.pdf

if the schematic isn't right we can look at others.

If you want to replace the capacitors , start reading here:
https://antiqueradio.org/recap.htm

it is sometimes possible to use a picture of another radio's dial or take a pic of what you have, or scan it , then edit it in photoshop and you can have places that make decals make clear stick on decals like they put in car windows or there are various ways of creating new ones. you can print waterslide decals, some radios have labels behind the pointer and some have the image painted on the glass.

here is a good place to buy capacitors. of course there are others in the US but it should give you an idea of the cost at least
https://www.justradios.com/
If you pull the chassis and flip it over you can see the wiring inside. You may be pleasantly surprised to find it's got a lot of cloth wiring that's still ok. when mice pee on stuff it rusts so you can evaluate that by looking. cleaning up a rusty chassis can take some effort but it might not be so bad.

If you need parts. I have lots of parts. sometimes I need to salvage parts or find two to get what's missing. I'm totally disorganized but I have boxes of tubes. Tubes last well and dont; really deteriorate over time. If you did want to restore it its very possible. Its a labor of love. I've restored radios that look a lot worse and I've thoroughly bringing even some of the more rough ones from rats nests to beautiful radios. The most important thing is that you like it.
I have a baycrest RCA console where it looks like a radio but you don't see the phono. it's 1939 plays 78's and was grandma's radio. I like it because I remember it from being a kid, seeing the eye tube, and since the phono is so hidden , the speaker grill pulls out like a drawer, that's kind of neat.
collectors like to keep buying them up cheap and you can only have so many consoles before it cramps your space. Ive been trying to thin out and taking some of the ones I'm not totally in love with to our radio club meets and passing them along. I'm saving some of the neater and more unusual and rare ones for future restorations. Its a fun hobby.
here is a link to our local museum. Ill intentionally link to their free ones I think I have a twin of the lower one that I'd like to part with.
https://sparcradio.ca/supporting-sparc/ ... uisitions/
if you look at their restorations there are more photos of ones they have worked on.

[mjt]

do you remember the newsgroups? they still exist but many aren't aware.

I recently had reason to try to track down my earliest usenet post - March of 1988, according to the archives.

[phil]

its neat that they are still there. I learned a lot about old radios from the usenet groups. I actually got into it partly because I realized that because of internet I now had better access to information. some were so helpful and kind. A lot of the posts were by older people and as they disappear some of the old posts can still be found and learned from.