Oscillodyne?

[Fantome]

A friend of mine called me up last night, He found this in an antique shop in nashville and bought it on a whim. He figured I would know what it was because I know a little bit about vintage electronics. I have no clue what this is or even what its used for, I am hoping someone here will chime in cause im stumped. He emailed me some pics and Im going to his place this weekend to look at it, I could snap some more detailed pics then. The company name is Whitmanns (The chocolate company?) It definately takes tubes but I cant tell what from the pics since it came tubeless. nor does it have a schematic anywhere on it. Ill post what pics I have so you can take a gander:

[Sandy G]

There were literally HUNDREDS of mfgers who rushed into making radios in the early 1920s, some made no more than a handful of sets before going "Toes Up", or going back into what was their REAL calling-A lot were furniture/cabinetry makers. I don't know, but I'd hazard a guess yr set uses 01As. They frequently get robbed from these old sets, as they're sometimes more valuable than the sets they're in.

[Fantome]

thing is looking at the pics, im not sure its a radio at all. maybe some sort of signal gain device? i can see a couple rheostats in the pic, wonder what this was used for... definately cant wait to go see it in person.

[jr_tech]

One thing that I noticed right off is that the set does not look like the usual TRF (tuned radio frequency) radio sets of the early 20s. TRF sets usually had 3 identical coil/variable capacitor circuits that were all tuned to the station followed by a detector and audio stages. This set has 2 coil/capacitor sets of different sizes at the front end, followed by several smaller (coils? Transformers?) and what appears to be an audio transformer. I think that it is perhaps an early superheterodyne set:
http://www.antiqueradio.com/corkutt_superhet.html
jr
PS yep! I bet a bunch of 01As would be used.

[stusnyder]

Looks like a battery set to me. My guess would be 01a's also. Check the transformer, it's common that they are open.

[leadlike]

It doesn't look like a common 20's battery set to me, either. I think superhets typically had 8 tubes (usually 199s). But the tuna fish can transformers scream superhet. Post this on ARF, someone there will know what you have.

Yep, get some 01as, and you can probably use a 71 tube for the audio output.

Did you check the underside? Sometimes there are elaborate instruction cards tacked there.

[Fantome]

Thanks everyone for the input. I will definitely give it a good looking at when I
Go check it out this weekend, thanks to you all I have a lot more to go on. I'll keep you posted as I find more out and get some better pics. I'll ask on ARF after I get some firsthand info.