 |
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
A 1953 Motorola table radio, model 53R. |
| |
|
|
By law, radios made between 1953 and 1963 had
civil defense markings on the dial, but this one never had them.
The marks would have been at 640 and 1240 kilohertz. (Add two zeros
to the numbers on the dial to get the frequency in kilohertz.) |
| |
|
|
|
Here's a look inside. |
| |
|
|
|
Notice serial number 15654 is hand written. I
wonder if the person who wrote it is still alive.
Did he or she write the numbers on the backs of 15,653 other radios?
Is 15654 a code? How do you decipher it? I found another
radio with the serial number 15698. I also found one with
the serial number 62398, and a yellow one with serial number
20898. So now we have four numbers, two
have 156 in common and three have 98 in common. Perhaps the
last two digits are the number of minutes I will lie awake
wondering about it. |
|
|
| |
|
|
|
Here it is the day I opened the box from ebay. I
wanted a red one and I thought this one would be easy to paint. |
| |
|
|
|
The dial is in outstanding condition for this
model radio. |
| |
|
|
|
The inside was very clean. |
| |
|
|
I had a tough time pulling off the back because
the interlocking plug was stuck. It turned out it had never been
removed.
All the tubes were Motorola! The back had been on for 67 years! |
| |
|
|
|
Only the outside is painted. |
| |
|
|
|
The paint is very thick. Boy, I'd hate to have
to strip it off. Good thing I'm just going to give it a coat of red
spray paint. |
|
| |
|
|
|
The radio was available in six different colors.
I have been unable to find a picture of the "Cloud Gray" version. |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| MODEL |
COLOR |
CABINET PART NBR |
| 53R1A |
WALNUT |
16E630169 |
| 53R2A |
IVORY |
16K630171 |
| 53R3A |
YELLOW |
16K630172 |
| 53R4A |
GRAY |
16K630173 |
| 53R5A |
GREEN |
16K630174 |
| 53R6A |
RED |
16K630175 |
|
|
| |
|
|
The price of the radio in 1953 was $19.95. That's equal to
$194.00 in 2020.
I got this radio on ebay for $25.00, which is $2.58 in 1953 dollars. Sounds
like I got a good deal. |
|
| |
|
|
I want a red one!
This is going to be easy! The radio is white, it just needs a coat
of red paint. |
| |
|
|
|
Nice! Ver-ree NICE. |
|
| |
|
I can't believe I'm almost done with this! I
put, like, minimal effort in it. |
| |
|
| |
|
We'll come back in an hour and see how it turned
out. |
| |
|
 |
|
Tick Tock, Tick Tock, Tick- DING!
Time's up! |
|
Whoo-hoo!! |
|
| |
| |
|
|
I gazed in horror at the result. I had just
RUINED the radio cabinet.
It was fine for 67 years. I get my hands on it and ruin it within an
hour. |
|
| |
|
|
|
Well, I heard that brake fluid will cause all
the paint to just slough off, so this should be easy to fix. |
| |
|
|
|
After 24 hours, this was the result. I thought
it was ruined before. Look at it now! |
|
| |
|
|
|
I switched to paint remover. Six days later this
is how it looked when I ran out of paint remover. |
| |
|
|
It took a lot of picking, scraping and sanding
to get all the paint off. Notice the Bakelite is black! Why didn't
they sell a black version?
It turns out the Bakelite is rough, so Motorola "smoothed" it by
laying the paint on thick. Ironically, all the sanding and rubbing
is smoothing it for real. |
| |
|
I'm getting tired of this. Let's examine the
dial. |
| |
|
|
|
|
| |
resize.jpg)
