[Steve Davis]

I started a restoration project on a Philco 20 Deluxe for a fellow. The grille is completely gone so, I will have to replace the front panel. Well, I started prying off the base moulding and this is what I found.   

 [Image: https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4379/3666...84a7_z.jpg]107_0615 by Steve Davis, on Flickr

When the cabinet was originally made, They had bent a nail while installing the base. Rather than removing the piece, they pounded the nail down below grade, filled it and sprayed toner over it! They did a very good job, it couldn't be seen until I removed the base and tapped the nails through from the back side.

Steve

[morzh]

I somehow am sure this was not a sole occurance. Nails do bend.
Interesting though.

[Steve Davis]

I'm sure it happened quite often. My point is, one would think they would pop the piece of trim off and put on another.

Steve

[Ron Ramirez]

Trim cost money! Remember, this was 1930 and the Depression was on. Philco was being run by Jim Skinner, of whom Fortune wrote in its February 1935 issue: "Mr. Skinner is Scotch and thrifty and Philco is thrifty and Scotch." One of the reasons Philco managed to climb to the top of the radio heap was their ability to scrimp and save where needed. Steve, you hit the nail on the head (no pun intended) with your title: "Waste not, want not"!

What did Philco do with leftover chassis and cabinets? Why, they put together Phactory Phranken-Philcos and sent them out the door to be sold! Sets that make us scratch our heads in wonder 80+ years on. Sets like an apparently short production run of grandfather clocks with Model 52 chassis...and even a grandfather clock with a model 89 chassis...a 200X cabinet with a 201 chassis inside (complete with Model 201 labels inside the cabinet)...a 1934 16L lowboy cabinet with 1935 escutcheon and 4-band chassis...a short run of Model 50 Baby Grands inside Model 70 Baby Grand (cathedral) cabinets with front panels drilled for three wide-spaced shafts instead of four narrow-spaced shafts...and there are many others.

And remember, the early production of Model 21 cabinets included leftover Model 20 chassis, complete with 71A output tubes...

If that Philco employee would have dared toss aside that piece of trim and installed another, he probably would have been immediately dismissed. So he drove the bent nail into the wood, filled the damaged area, and sent the cabinet on its way...

[Phlogiston]

I've seen so many done that way that I don't consider it unusual anymore.