AK 82 cathedral and Crosley "fiver" tombstone

[radiotvnut]

A few weeks ago, a new flea market opened and the two times I went by, there were very few vendors and most of what they had was new crap. A friend told me that there were two old wooden radios there; so, I went by today and sure enough, there were two old radios.

The first one I saw was an AK cathedral and I said to myself, "they'll probably want ten prices for this." I looked at the tag and it said $50. Then, I noticed the cabinet issues (broken piece out of the grille, missing piece on the right hand side of the cabinet, missing cabinet brace, and various parts that need to be glued back). I said to myself, "it has the knobs, the chassis looks complete, and despite the cabinet issues, this thing is going to my house."

I sat it on the counter and asked the guy if he had anymore radios. He said he didn't think so; but, that I was welcome to look around. When I went in the back, I noticed a decent looking Crosley "fiver" tombstone. I again said, "they'll probably have the price jacked up"; but, it was $45 and looked like a routine restoration; so, it also came home with me.

Right now, insurance is due on both the house and car and I had about as much business buying these two radios as I need a hole in the head; but, I knew I'd likely never find an AK cathedral for $50. Around here, the only cathedrals I see are those stupid Thomas replicas that people always want too much green for.

[Sandy G]

Ahh HATE Yew...(grin) Seriously, those are GREAT scores, anytime nowadays finding a tube radio that isn't Sixties el-cheapo plastic clockradio combination, you're doing GREAT...

[Ohighway]

Nice grab. I'm particularly fond of that Crosley !

[Reece]

Nice finds. The veneer on the AK grille can be patched easily. The grille cloth on the Crosley looks fine. Wonder what is missing from that hole to the left of the chassis on the Crosley: hope it's not an antenna coil.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by Reece

Nice finds. The veneer on the AK grille can be patched easily. The grille cloth on the Crosley looks fine. Wonder what is missing from that hole to the left of the chassis on the Crosley: hope it's not an antenna coil.

That's where one of the 'lytic cans was located.
Mine is a model 517, which is rather common. Something strange about these radios, is the 5Y3 is used as a half wave rectifier. They were good radios, easy to restore and many survived.

[truetone36]

No radio collection is complete without at least one Atwater Kent. They were TOTL in their day, built like tanks and easy to restore.

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by truetone36

No radio collection is complete without at least one Atwater Kent. They were TOTL in their day, built like tanks and easy to restore.

The A-K is a superhet. I looked up the schematic and it has some unconventional circuitry. I think they used their own version of AVC.
See where the volume control is located.
Seems like it's in some kind of bias line, that has a bearing on all the tuned stages.