The chassis is very similar to my 1938-39 Deforest Crosley Brahms, the knobs were coated with a dark brown tinted lacquer originally, undercoated with silver paint. In 1940 or so they dropped the "Crosley" portion of Deforest Crosley, probably because Mohawk radio acquired the rights to use that name in Canada, perhaps after Ted Rogers senior died and the company was sold to Small Electric Motors Ltd.
This Deforest is rather strange, it looks like a 1938-39 Canadian Majestic model. I did find an add for it on the radiomuuseeum site, all of the other Deforest models have a flat, rectangular slide rule dial, and the example they show of a "Ritz" has a pushbutton bank of ten above the dial indicating it was motor tuned.
http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/deforest_ri...d1092.html
The 1938-39 Majestic models looked almost identical, here is a very similar set that again does not have the motor tuning:
http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/rogerstube_...m1091.html
In the 1938-39 model year they often had two two models sharing the same chassis with the same circuits, the more expensive set would have the motorized tuning, the cheaper set would not. The 8105 had no pushbuttons, the 8106 did have pushbuttons, one used the 8M1091 chassis, the other used the 8M1092 chassis with the motor tuning but everything else is the same. Here is a Deforest Crosley Liszt, it has a 8D991 chassis, no pushbuttons:
http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/deforest_liszt.html
Here is the set I have, a Deforest Crosley Brahms, it uses an 8D992 chassis, same chassis but with motor tuning, the Liszt is was $10 cheaper:
http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/deforest_br...992_2.html
When you get right into the technical aspects it's amazing how much of the design was based on marketing rather then meaningful engineering in some sets, the main difference between the 8D(M,R)1091/1092 and the 8D(M,R)991/992 was the addition of a type 84M tube, basically a spray shielded 6H6G, and the substitution of a 6J5M for a 6R7M, the circuitry connected to the two separate tubes is exactly the same.
My guess is that Rogers was trying to use up left over 1938-39 Majestic chassis for the 1939-40 model year, either that of they couldn't be bothered with the cost of retooling and engineering for a new top end model and just facelifted a 1938-39 Majestic instead.
Regards
Arran