A friend who owns a local consignment store asked if I could help supply a year / model number for this Wells Gardner console recently brought in. There's no model number on the chassis or in the cabinet. Here are a few photos:
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As best as I could find it's around a 1937.
Greg,
How much does he want for that radio and will he ship it?
Steve
Steve, I know they wouldn't have the means to pack the radio to ship it but perhaps if you were to make all the arrangements and have it picked up they could do it. Here's the website:
http://www.furnishtraders.com/ You can contact them direct if you're interested. A husband and wife own it and the wife contacted me about the radio. Her name is Alixe.
Greg,
Thanks. She's sending me some more pictures.
Steve
Great! It looks like a very nice radio. Hope you can work it out.
Greg,
Nice radio in the pics she sent me. With paying someone to pack it, along with the high $300 price tag, makes it really pricey. Thanks for the lead. It was worth checking into.
Steve
Steve, you may want to check back with them in a month or so. If it's still in stock they may offer it at a lower price. willeezwarez on eBay seems to have good luck shipping consoles at a reasonable cost, but I believe he does his own packing.
$300 is too high.... like Greg suggested check back in a month or three with a more reasonable offer. Also the dial is missing something, but I can't really tell if it is just a logo or something more significant:
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Believe it's some sort of signal strength indicator.
I have to wonder where people get their prices from sometimes, late 1930s console, needs refinishing, needs electrical restoration since it probably doesn't work, $300. Even where I am that would have to be priced at no more the $150 in a store like that, or it would just sit there, in a private sale no more then $100, and radios of that sort are much easier to come by in the U.S mid West then they are here.
With regard to the hole near the bottom I believe that it is some sort of vernier tuning scale, the pointer probably travels at three times the rate as the tuning dial pointer does.
Regards
Arran
I had advised the owners with regard to antique radios not to just plug them in and "try them out". However they did turn this set on and surprisingly it worked well. Even the tuning eye. Of course that doesn't necessarily mean it had any electrical restoration done to it. It could be just that the original components are still functioning...for the time being. I paid $150 for my fully restored 1936 Sparton console a few years back but only because I know the man who restored it (he's a highly respected and knowledgeable member of our local radio club) and I know it was done right. He's not one to cut corners, so for all of the work he described doing, that was more than a fair price to me.