Atwater Kent Model 43 "coffin style" find.

[Tubejunke]

I walked into an antique store the other day and see what I recognize as a 1920s table top speaker with the wires going into this strange looking box that looks like a child's coffin. I took the lid off of the box and there like new money are all these shiny old "big pin" and "globe" tubes. Too bad I think; another farm radio or DC battery type that I always skip over.

Then I notice an AC power cord. Did someone wire in a plug to one of the A or B connecting wires? I've seen that before! Finally I could see enough to know that there was a transformer and a #80 rectifier tube. Indeed the radio was an AC/DC set. Wow! I normally cut off my collecting years in the 30s when superheterodyne AC/DC sets had become the norm & thus know very little about the early T.R.F. stuff, so I was caught off guard on this, but pleasantly surprised.

The man running the store said that the radio worked, but he said we would have to take it outside in order to pick up a station. It took both of us to move the amazingly heavy set! We ended up plugging it in and weren't able to receive a station. A point in my favor for talking them down on the $75 price tag. I was happy just seeing the set come on with a working power supply and audio section with nothing getting hot except a ballast resistor in there. The dial only went from 0 to 100 cycles, but I found out that 100 is actually 1Khz. The set is SUPER clean with all cloth wiring like new, paper labels intact on the chassis, and what I assume to be original paint on the metal body.

Got it home and was able to clearly pick up one station. It doesn't seem to even faintly pick up anything else. It's the preaching and gospel music station which is OK, but gets a bit old. I wonder if there is a way I can rig up a converter via another radio sort of like the FM converters worked in car radios. FM would be great, but I would settle for more AM selections.

So there you have it. If anyone has any thoughts, comments and/or suggestions; please let me know. Oh, and I was able to talk them down to $60. I think it has to be worth that.. What comes around really does go around I think. A few years ago I more less gave away an AK model 20 with the matching speaker horn. It needed a proper home