1950s? Capehart Clock Radio in its original box
 

Hello everyone I was looking through Facebook Marketplace and I spotted a 1950s vintage Capehart Clock Radio in its original box along with its original paper work (I believe it may be NOS) for sale for $65 locally and I'm going to be picking it up tomorrow afternoon.

I have some pictures from the original listing I can post on here to show you what it looks like.

What do you guys think, is that a good deal for a potentially NOS clock radio?

Thanks for your help.

It's fair. I'd like it to be a bit lower, but considering it's NOS sweetens the deal. I like the mid to late 50's look of it.

Did you get it?

Yes I did, I had to replace a couple of the tubes in the radio because the output tube was bad and so was the two 12BA6 tubes in the radio. It works great now.

It couldn't be NOS if three tubes were bad.
Some people keep the original box in the attic.
Tubes don't go bad when they are not used. :sigh:

Well I think it may have been a low use set that may have been used a couple of years and then put back into its original box and stored in a closet somewhere, because the radio had all of its original tubes in it yet but the 50C5 output tube had become microphonic (it made a horrible "feedback" noise when the radio was powered up) and that was originally the only tube that was bad but then one of the 12BA6 tubes went open (the filiment did) after I had replaced the 50C5 tube.

The reason why I think it might be a pretty low hour set is because the metal chassis has no rust on it whatsoever and a very minimal dust buildup inside.

Its still a very nice original condition/nicely preserved set, even if it isn't NOS, the original box still has all of its original shipping labels on it from the Capehart Factory in Fort Wayne, IN to the Appliance store it was shipped to in Kansas, and then the shipping label from the appliance store it was bought from to the person who bought it from said appliance store in Camden, IN.

Yes I know the shipping labels don't make sense but that's what the shipping labels said, the shipping label said that it was shipped from the Capehart Factory in Fort Wayne, IN to a shop called Western Appliance in Witchita, Kansas, who then shipped it to someone in Camden, IN.

The mislabelling it of "NOS" was my fault, I just assumed that since it was still in its original box that it was "NOS", and that's because the person I bought it from didn't really say anything about the radio in his original FB Marketplace listing except that it was "A 1950s Capehart Clock Radio with its original box, make an offer."

So when I went to pick it up, that's when he told me that he had powered up the radio and said that the radio made a loud "feedback" noise when it was turned on, which I figured it was a microphonic output tube, which was indeed what it was, because when I replaced that tube the radio worked fine then, but the sensitivity/selectivity sucked, so I checked the IF Alignment and sure enough the alignment was off (probably part of the reason why the radio was put away originally, because the output tube started acting up and original owner twiddled around with the IF cans thinking that it would fix the problem but it didn't.)

So after I went to put the chassis back into the cabinet that was when the 12BA6 tube died because when I tried to turn the radio back on to test my work the tubes wouldn't light so I checked all of the tubes and all of them except one of the 12BA6 tubes tested 100+ on the tube checker (including the original 50C5 even though it was microphonic) so I think that maybe the 12BA6 must of went open from all of the movement from when I was working on the realigning the radio chassis.

A little update, It turns out that actually the original output tube was fine (I reinstalled the output tube into the radio with the new 12BA6 installed) and the radio worked fine, no funky "feedback" noise from the radio, so it turns out that the funky "feedback" noise must of been that 12BA6 tube that went open starting to fail and causing some wierd interference "feedback" noise with the original output tube. :scratch2:

So the radio is now 99% original and still functioning properly, (the other 1% being a non-original 12BA6 tube that replaced the original 12BA6 tube that failed) and when I said 3 tubes were bad, it was actually 2 tubes the second 12BA6 was not actually bad, I just installed another 12BA6 in the radio in place of the original (which was still good) just to see if the radio reception would improve and it didn't (that was when I ended up realigning the IF section of the radio which was what ended up actually improving the reception along with installing an external long-wire antenna to the external antenna terminal on the back of the radio.)

But now it turns out it was really only one bad tube in the radio to begin with, like I thought, but I misidentified the wrong tube as being the bad tube (I originally thought it was the output tube that was the culprit when in reality it was the RF AMP tube that was the problem, as the "feedback noise" I was hearing was apparently just the noise of the tuner "howling" because the RF section was malfunctioning due to a failing 12BA6 RF AMP Tube.

Interesting how different radio malfunctions can sound similar to each other but be caused by completely different problems.