Another Hallicrafters 506 in a Delco cabinet.
 

Actually two of them on eBay.

Some of you may remember me posting about a 506 that I thought was a mash up of two sets, guess it isn't, both of the eBay sets have the Delco TV-71 number on the bottom of the case but 508 tube charts inside.
The S-10-48 can't be the date either unless all three were made on the same day, unlikely I think.

The knobs are different than the usual Hallicrafters as well so I wonder if they are the Delco knobs?

Maybe Hallicrafters had a bunch of left over Delco cabinets and knobs?
In any case maybe I should be restoring the TV-71 cabinet instead of the 506 one.

Anyone have any of those knobs floating around?

Set 1


Set 2

My guess is that these sets were both made for an unknown third party and shipped in October 1948 (S-10-48), but for some reason were unsold and returned to Hallicrafters, who simply replaced the lower-front trim-panel with a new Hallicrafters one and also replaced the original third-party paper stickers inside before reselling the sets.

The manufacture date is on a ticket that was attached to the yellow, red and black wires between the CRT socket and the chassis. It is visible on the gold-knob set and says "T-54" as expected, but the date is not readable, and the ticket seems to be missing on the other set. (The fact that these normally "rubber" covered wires are cloth on the set with the gold knobs, probably indicates an extremely early production date. This can be confirmed by the fact that both sets have channel 1 although the other uses the normal colored "rubber" wires on the CRT socket.)

These could simply be very very early production knobs, with a design that was dropped as too labor intensive or because the protruding paint was too easy to chip.

The set with the gold knobs could also be a former owner's "improvement" or a cannibalized replacement knobs. You can see that the power button is a replacement.

If one wanted to create these knobs, just chuck the standard knob in low-speed lathe and apply gold-particle paint with a camel's hair artist's brush. Before the paint dries, wipe off any runs with a Q-Tip.

For the record, my Delco has no writing on the base and uses the normal Hallicrafters' knobs that turn white.

Jas.