[Arran]

Arran

The Canadian equivalent to the 41-290 is the 43 or 43A. The Canadian version would be preferred as it would only have rubber-covered leads coming from the IF transformers; the rest of the wiring, as you know, would be higher quality cloth-covered.

I seem to recall having at least one 41-290 cross my bench at some time in the past, and I don't think it really performed much better than a 41-280, if at all. The tenth tube is a 37 used as a phase inverter, so the 290/43 doesn't have that trick screen phase inversion method used in so many later Philco sets with push-pull output tubes.

Yes, a 43 would probably have many of the same issues as a 41-290 that you named such as Tenite escutcheons and failing audio output transformers. The wiring would be mostly better as I mentioned above.

No photofinish on the cabinet that I recall.

Ron;
  I found an ad for a Canadian model 43 on a non Philcoradio dot com website we all know, except they call it a 43X. But rather then linking to that Swiss site with stolen and pirated content I looked up the source of the ad, Winnipeg Tribune, December, 14, 1940:

http://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba....%3A1340311

 What is neat is that they have a radio program schedule posted on the same page. But here is a larger ad, which includes several local dealers in the Winnipeg area, some of the other sets look like Philco Tropic clones, or the Tropics are clones of these:

http://digitalcollections.lib.umanitoba....%3A1340572

Regards
Arran