[Jeffhs]

IMHO, this radio seems to me to be far, far too much radio for most people. Most people in the 1920s-40s listened to radio the same as folks in the 1950s to now watched television--for news and entertainment. There would be little if any need, IMHO, for a radio with as much audio output and probably RF sensitivity as this one in radio's early days.

I believe this radio was made just for people who wanted the best radio available at the time, and could afford it (it probably sold for well over $500). Think of this radio as the Cadillac of radios, again with a price tag to match.

I don't think very many of these sets were sold; those which did sell were probably sold to filthy rich people, such as Texas oil barons or folks who inherited fortunes from deceased relatives. Most of the rest of America listened to radio broadcasts over consoles or small table radios, and made the best of it. There may have even been some people who could not afford even a small table radio, so they listened to the then-new radio broadcasts over a crystal set. There was a major radio manufacturer, I can't recall the name as I write this, which made a small one-tube battery-powered radio; the single tube was mounted in a tube socket on the front panel of the radio. I remember seeing a picture of this radio in an issue of, IIRC, Popular Electronics magazine, from 1960 or so, in an article on old radios.

Again IIRC, I think the picture showed this radio with the single tube broken at the base or elsewhere; however, this didn't make much difference since the photo was only meant to show the radio itself. On the front panel was the volume control, of course, and a large, lever-shaped knob with a hole at one end; this knob was the station selector, with the hole being used as an indicator to show the station to which the radio was tuned (the dial scale, of course, was printed on the radio's front panel and showed the numbers 1 through ten, not the actual frequency in kilocycles).