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I have seen, and personally own, many battery operated tube radios.
Until the mid '20's, battery powered sets were your only option. These sets often used an "A" battery for the filament, one (or more) "B" batteries to supply the various plate voltages necessary, and one or more "C" batteries for the grid bias voltage.
By the late '20's, the AC operated radio came along; but, there were still many areas where electric power lines were not available. I live in Mississippi and I'm told that there were rural areas of my state that did not have electricity until the early '50's. It is for these reasons that "farm" battery operated radios continued to be made well into the '50's. By the late '30's, the battery requirements had gotten lighter. By this time, most battery sets required only two voltages - 1.5 volts for the tube filaments and 90 volts for the plate. The radio usually had a four pin plug that was designed to connect to a special battery pack that actually had both the 1.5 volt and 90 volt batteries in the same case.
There were also portables that would either run on battery power only or would run on battery or AC household current. Many of these were el cheapo models that would only receive the standard broadcast AM band; while others were high end and would receive many short wave bands as well as the standard AM band. These were popular from the '30's until at least the late '50's. The earliest models from the '30's and '40's were in a cloth covered wooden case. By the late '40's-early '50's, colored plastic cases became the norm. The end of the battery operated tube radio was in sight when the transistor radio was introduced to the American public in late '54. The transistor radio was smaller, lighter, required lower voltages to operate, and would usually last MUCH longer on a set of batteries than it's tube-type counterpart. I personally own a plain jane looking GE tube portable from around '58-'59; but, I don't recall seeing any tube portables any newer than that.
Today, these battery radios are still not nearly as popular with collectors as AC operated sets. The reason is because the batteries are either no longer made or very expensive. Decades ago, when electricity came to certain areas, there was a device called a "battery eliminator" that was put on the market. These devices were a rather crude, by today's standards, power supply that would convert the 120 VAC household current to the necessary DC voltages to operate the set. These battery eliminators don't show up all that much and can be a little expensive when they do turn up; but, fortunately, a suitable "battery eliminator" can be made, using modern components, that is more efficient and often safer than the older models. I have two of the older battery eliminators (that were found in the back of the radios in which they were used with) and I have a newer solid state unit that I built.
And, let's not forget automobile radios. Up until the late '50's, these used a vibrator based power supply. In the late '50's, models appeared that used special tubes that could operate on 12 volts B+. These models also used a transistorized audio output stage. The "low B+" tubes, combined with the transistorized audio output stage, eliminated the need for the vibrator and power transformer based power supply. By '63-'64, I think that all automobile radios had switched to 100% solid state designs.
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