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Santa made an Early Stop in Tulsa - Printable Version

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Santa made an Early Stop in Tulsa - jrblasde - 12-24-2025

Just as my homemade eggnog got frosty, Santa Claus paid an early visit! My uncle had apparently gotten this radio at an estate sale for $10 back in August, but lost interest in it (he doesn’t restore them, but rather he collects random stuff). He was hoping I could do something with it. Looks to be an Air Castle, but I am uncertain of the model. One of the IF cans says to “mention model no. 610”, but I can’t find anything online about that. I will have to continue searching. 

   

   

It’s going to need a lot of work done to the cabinet, much like my last couple of restorations.

   

   

However, the good news is that the visible portions of the speaker cone look to be undamaged. The chassis also looked okay. Dirty, but everything looks complete.

   

I was unfamiliar with Air Castle until now, but I did a bit of research. I understand it was the line of radios offered by the Spiegel’s mail-order store (I’m also unfamiliar with Spiegel’s, but my mom and granddad had heard of it). I guess it’s similar to Sear’s carrying the Silvertone line. I am very familiar with Sears! It was before my time, but my great grandfather ran a Sears catalog store in Piggott, Arkansas. Even while I was growing up, my granddad bought everything Sears and K-Mart.

RE: Santa made an Early Stop in Tulsa - morzh - 12-24-2025

With some TLC...for $10 it is quite acceptable.

RE: Santa made an Early Stop in Tulsa - DaleHCook - 12-25-2025

The 610 chassis is in Rider Vol. 12, Spiegel p. 34 (Air Castle was a brand manufactured for Spiegel, Inc.).

RE: Santa made an Early Stop in Tulsa - jrblasde - 12-25-2025

Thank you, Dale! Let me see if the tubes match up to that one.

RE: Santa made an Early Stop in Tulsa - jrblasde - 12-25-2025

Very strange, this chassis doesn’t at all match the model 610 in the Rider’s manual. That one shows a power transformer and all tubes have 6V filaments, whereas mine lacks a power transformer and has the following tubes:

The chassis is laid out exactly as the model on Spiegel pages 13-3 and 13-4 of Rider’s 13th edition.

   

   

   

RE: Santa made an Early Stop in Tulsa - Jim Dutridge - 12-25-2025

The picture of the chassis you posted does show a power transformer right next to the tuning capacitor.

RE: Santa made an Early Stop in Tulsa - jrblasde - 12-25-2025

Granted, it is huge for an output transformer, but I didn’t see anything else on or underneath the chassis recognizable as an output transformer so I figured that must be it.

But you are right! I just took another look at the schematic and realized that the output transformer is part of the speaker assembly. So yes, this chassis does feature a power transformer. Great clarification, Jim! Even so, based on the tubes and layout of the chassis it looks like the chassis still matches the model 610 as shown in the screenshots above from the 13th edition of Rider’s, and not the chassis style 610 of the 12th edition.

RE: Santa made an Early Stop in Tulsa - morzh - 12-25-2025

Your output xfmr is mounted on teh speaker.

This one is the power xfmr.

RE: Santa made an Early Stop in Tulsa - Arran - 12-26-2025

Interesting choice of tubes in this little set, I don't think that I have seen anything that used a 6AC5 before, and the 6J8 is a triode-heptode that was used in some Philco Tropics, and Rogers built sets, but not much else. You don't really need a separate mixer and oscillator section in the convertor tube of a two band radio, so this thing must have been built around Philco engineering principles, design the set around whatever tubes you can get cheap, in bulk, and immediately.
Regards
Arran

RE: Santa made an Early Stop in Tulsa - jrblasde - 12-26-2025

Haha, great point Arran! I can’t help but wonder—we found the schematic in the 1943 edition of the Rider’s manual, which would have put this radio right in the thick of WWII. I’m willing to bet that inventory was the driving factor in the design.

RE: Santa made an Early Stop in Tulsa - Arran - 12-27-2025

Joseph;
I'm surprised that the set is as new as that, I would have figured around 1938 given the mix of tubes, though I am not sure of the 6AC5. Apparently Brand Z liked that tube in some of their 1940 models, it's almost always paired up with a 6P5, though a 76 was considered a reasonable alternative. The speaker is a little retro as well, it looks like an older Jensen or Magnavox with that bell over the field coil. I guess it is another entry of the last gasp pre war sets, like the console and chairside models Philco made out of leftover MoPar and Ford car radios they had in stock.
Regards
Arran

RE: Santa made an Early Stop in Tulsa - jrblasde - 01-03-2026

I believe I have finally found the correct radio which has the model 610 chassis installed in it. Courtesy of radiomuseum.org, I believe it is a model WP150. Take a look at this: 

https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/spiegel_w150.html

It’s a bit older than I thought. I had figured it was a 1942 or ‘43 model since it first appeared in the 1943 volume XIII edition of the Rider’s manual, but this indicates it is a 1939 model. The Rider’s manual listed several models which used the 610 chassis, including the model W150. I’ve been unable to find a W150, but this model WP150 looks like the one. Same tubes as well.

RE: Santa made an Early Stop in Tulsa - jrblasde - 03-09-2026

Back in late December or early January I mailed in the dial for this Air Castle to Radio Daze. I’ve been writing back and forth over email with a guy named John, who agreed he can reproduce the dial. Today he sent me a link to the result, and I am stunned! It looks amazing! I’ve gone ahead and placed my order. I read the description, and the good news is that it looks like he’s chosen to reproduce it in plastic, rather than whatever sort of card stock the original was made of. It should be more durable. And it’s publicly available now, should anyone else ever need one!

   

   

RE: Santa made an Early Stop in Tulsa - morzh - 03-09-2026

Very nice repro.

RE: Santa made an Early Stop in Tulsa - klondike98 - 03-10-2026

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