[kiwi_steve]

Send the cabinet (just the empty cabinet) that's "not so nice" to Ron in the States.

Seriously, I would love to be able to get my mitts on one of those NZ Philco cabinets of that very style. They look so much better than the USA 37-640B which is much plainer and has photofinish. The New Zealand version needs no photofinish, it is quite beautiful on its own...in my opinion.

But I know the shipping, even for an empty cabinet, would be a killer...$$$$

You're right, its one of the few situations where I think we got a better finished product... 

Sending from there to here was somewhere in the ballpark of $350 for an empty 89B cabinet... I can't imagine it will be much different from here to you... and if I did that you would need to send me something in return... which means we'd both be broke... but hey, we'd both be happy!  

I might price it up just out of interest if I get a chance

(E for export, Z for New Zealand (I assume))

Yes, E stands for export. But the Z does not stand for New Zealand. Most if not all Philco export chassis from around 1937 on had model numbers ending in "EZ" to indicate export models. What the "Z" stands for, I haven't a clue.

Oh, darn.  It seemed so obvious, and Z is the prefix other manufacturers used for NZ sets (for example Pye would use P or PE as a prefix for many of their radios in England, while they used PZ for the Kiwi ones).