There's a few subtle changes to the dial glasses and cabinets too. The 516 has the AWA logo on the left side of the dial glass and Bakelite feet moulded as part of the cabinet. The other models had different dial graphics and rubber feet. The 500 had much larger power transformers too, suitable for areas with 40Hz mains.

One of each colour? Coming into radios at this late stage it's probably not possible but I think I've got a shot at one of each year model - 500M, MY etc.

Don't count yourself out there. For about twenty years I've had a white one though it had a crack in the top of the cabinet, probably due to someone carrying it like a briefcase instead of like a baby. In the last ten years I've got the jade one, then brown, then cream, followed by the turquoise, burgundy and lastly another white. Only the last colour, the white/brown coffee speckle remains to grab though there may well be another colour or two that few people know of.

Other colours were made for Astor and Columbus in New Zealand however they had plastic control knobs instead of matching Bakelite like AWA used. While these NZ cabinet colours do look great they will never be able to be dressed up as a Radiolette because of the different control knobs.

I've been noticing a lot of subtle differences in the dial glasses, even within the same model. From what I can gather different colour cabinets had slightly different colours on the dial glass. I've seen red circles and blue circles and some 500's that have an extra 3 yellow lines between the NSW QLD SA / VIC WA TAS halves of the dial (500MY's?) as well as different coloured backgrounds. The background of my 516 is sort of a sludgy grey green colour but with it out of the cabinet you can see from the corners and behind the dial pointer that it was probably originally a reddish brown colour. The background and glass of my 500 are missing but a few remnants suggest it was also a reddish brown colour.

The speaker cloth also seems to vary. Most of the 500's I've seen have red cloth although some like your turquoise one have a beige cover. My 516 has a coarse beige cover like this that I'm reasonably sure is oringinal though I've seen just as many 516's with red cloth. So confusing!

Good to know the difference between a 500 cabinet and a 516, I was wondering if they were interchangeable.

Warren

Yep, any chassis can be put in any cabinet as far as I know. Back when this website was just a personal site back in 2003 I wrote an article on the changes that are made to cabinets over their lifetime.

You can see that here.

Yep, any chassis can be put in any cabinet as far as I know. Back when this website was just a personal site back in 2003 I wrote an article on the changes that are made to cabinets over their lifetime.

You can see that here.