[init4fun]

It takes an honest man to admit he was wrong , and being honest I'm gonna admit right here and now , my suspicion of the customer getting ripped off , based on how could all 4 tubes go bad all at once , was wrong .

Remember the Happy Days episode where Fonzie just couldn't admit he was wrong ? Mrs. Cunningham kept badgering him to fess up and admit he was wrong and he just couldn't do it , every time he tried to say the word "wrong" he'd stumble and mumble and do everything but say the word . Well not me , not here , my ego ain't so fragile as to admit my wrong notion about the tubes .

So , as you've likely already guessed , yes indeed I did test the tubes taped into the back of the radio and just as the receipt says , one is bad (the gassy 3Q4 that's visually obvious from the cracked glass and white dusty getter) and the other three show up shorted on my tester . In the exact same test , the working tubes in the radio test with no shorts , and the tubes that test shorted do not work in the radio . All three that lit the short light also show grid emission , and no normal cathode emission when tested for that .

So in the end the customer got exactly what they paid for , A properly repaired cheap radio that likely didn't cost all that much more than the repairs did when it was bought new .

PS Olorin67 may well have provided the answer , dropping the radio darned well could have damaged all the tubes at once .