[Jeffhs]

Donny, I am amazed the dial scale of your radio wasn't smashed to bits (likewise the tubes) when you finally got it. The way the cabinet is damaged, I'd have almost expected the dial to be in pieces as well. Whomever you bought that set from must have either been in a terrible hurry to pack it, or else he/she doesn't know beans as far as how to pack something--anything--properly for shipment is concerned. Some folks are like that; they just want to get the thing packed, shipped and out of their way ASAP--to heck with how the item is packed. There have been cases where valuable antiques, not necessarily radios or TV sets, have arrived at their destinations ruined or in pieces simply because the shipper did not use enough or the proper type of packing in the box around, above and below the item. There must be enough packing material surrounding the item being shipped (as has been mentioned here, not wadded newspaper or styrofoam peanuts alone) to keep the item from moving in the box during shipping. As someone else mentioned a few posts ago, items packed for shipping must be packed securely enough to withstand being dropped or even kicked across a floor, which often happens these days. Even delivery services such as UPS and FedEx are guilty of this--I read not long ago in one of these AK forums where FedEx is the worst when it comes to manhandling packages.

Good luck with your Stewart-Warner radio which, as Sandy mentioned, is a very cute little set. I don't know much about them (Stewart-Warner is sort of an off brand, which I am not that familiar with), but I would think it should work well once you finish recapping it. The damage to the cabinet should be easy to repair as well. I was reading on an antique radio website the other day about a fellow who once received a Zenith chairside radio in terrible shape--the cabinet had been all but ruined and was falling apart by the time he received the set. However, he simply reglued and refinished the cabinet; now he has a radio which looks almost as nice as it probably did when new; there's no reason you shouldn't be able to fix the cabinet of your little set with little effort--after all, table model cabinets are a lot less work to restore than consoles.

Once you're finished, I'd say you will have a radio you can be proud of and which should serve you well for many years to come. Many of these old sets can run rings around the small Japanese and Korean imports one can get in discount houses and even drug stores for $5 or less (and the older sets were built more solidly as well in many cases, with the exception of one very troublesome Zenith model which was built on a Bakelite chassis, tube sockets being molded into the "chassis" and all; they were recalled and, according to Zenith legend, were smashed to bits, with no further sets of this kind ever being manufactured by Zenith again--I guess they learned their lesson, but good). I have a Zenith K-731 AM/FM table set in a walnut cabinet I paid $25 for on ebay last year; didn't have to do a thing to it or with it when it arrived here except plug it in and listen--and it sounds great. (This radio now has a prominent spot in my apartment and, needless to say, is the pride and joy of my entire small Zenith radio collection which now stands at five sets.) It proves what I just said about older radios (except those troublesome Bakelite-chassis Zeniths) being better than their newer imported counterparts.





Kind regards,