[Arran]

Well Grimes-Phonola/Electrohome had their own furniture factory, DEILCRAFT, so it's unlikely that they would have had surplus wood cabinets in stock as they could make those to order. With regard to chassis there were a number of C.G.E, and Canadian RCA models that were basically facelifted pre war models in different cabinets, the chassis were basically identical. It's possible that Electrohome, much like the other makers of the time, was trying to work around parts shortages, Philco was notorious for mixing and matching tube styles, and then changing the lineups during different production runs. There was a pent up demand after having suspended civilian radio production in early 1942, much like there was with cars, but tube and component production had not really ramped up enough to fill it. So you see sets with electrodynamic speakers when they could have used P.M dynamics, rubber/gutta percha wire when they could have used vinyl, cloth power cords, and even BED coded "dogbone" resistors in some sets. I think there may have been a large number of molded Bakelite tube sockets available at the time, possibly war surplus, as a number of sets used them even when the pre-war versions used wafer sockets, unfortunately Electrohome seems to have bucked this trend and used the worst wafer sockets I have ever encountered.
Regards
Arran