Some closeup photos of the wiring in the 1930's radio I am working on. Really strange method of wiring up, even though the resistors had ample lead length to reach the lug on the valve socket, the constructor has chosen to solder in rigid bus wire, then a length of cloth braid wire, then another length onto the resistor/capacitor.

This is done all over the interior of the set. Never seen this done on any other radio I have seen.

Real depression era set with extreme economy utilised. Not one tagstrip anywhere, stuff hanging all over the place. Yet the chassis and valve shields appear to be good quality.

Photos sent.

The words recession era tells the story.
People use what is available, cloth covered wire may not have been in abundance then, nor tag strips. Was there any danger of shorts ?
I recently worked on a set where a multican electro had only one side taken out of circuit and replaced rather than doing both sides. The repair was done in the early 60s when these radios were common place , but for me as a collector I replaced all capacitors.

But having said that I would have gone straight from place to place using the cap and resistor leads

I can't speak for Radios of that Era but I can speak of furniture. During the 1930s it was often built with scrap bits ,lots of cheap pine from packing Crates and odd bits can be found here and there through out the cabinets.
During the 1980s and early 90s there was a boom in 30s furniture and many boomers had old Federation houses and would pay huge amounts for it,,,but it all went bust and dealers got stuck with piles of it.
As the boomer aged they had filled their house and now there were Young folk setting up homes who had no interest in it.
These days a 30s piece of furniture is very hard to sell and is worth very little cash.
People would often phone me with 30s furniture , wanting to sell it and I would just say no....a 30s piece can sit around for months and months at a time and just not sell.
But mid century contemporary furniture will sell so fast ,it's hard to keep up trying to find more stock . These days I won't buy anything to sell that's made before 1950 and I've stuck to that since about 2003 From that point in time you just couldn't sell old 30s furniture in any numbers to make it worth while.

Pete

Pete I can vouch for some of the 30s radios. Astor was very good at using packing crates to make radio cabinets. I have a beautiful SEYON that was made from a large well made packing crate.

Remember the Henry Ford concept?
The packing crates for exported bare chassis cars were the floor boards of the cars!.
I never proved that in practice, but the idea that Henry did that is mentioned a lot of times.
Henry did not waste a cent so I believe it.

Fred.

Photos uploaded to Post 4.

Photos uploaded to Post 4.

Nice - and it has a tuning indicator.

Thanks Brad. I thought you would notice .

Yes Robbert it does have a magic eye. A very nice set.

It is amazing what Henry's mob did with parts as well and in the 50's they were all at it. Many radio parts came from one supplier & ended up in most of them. If I look at my ute some bits are common to several models, The water pump bearing & seal are the same as a 1962 Fordson tractor & carry its part number and the Voltage regulator E27- Which is a 1947 Fordson Tractor & the front beam on the 1962 Tractor is the same part. Radiator cap is the same as a Ferguson tractor as are the clutch fingers and the starter motor & the thermostat.

Same carburettor as a Humber Super snipe. Early Commodore clutch plate was the same as a 28 Chev. Dizzy cap on AP% Valiant was the same as a Merc.

Recycling & interchangeability is not new & its amazing what fits other things especially around the fifties