This is how it arrived. Almost no padding, rough postal service handling and a badly deteriorated case created a bad situation. I started (by necessity) with the case. Every seam was broken. This allowed me to completely disassemble the radio which was probably a good thing because every panel had delaminated to one degree or another. The sides were the worst and required replacement of a portion of the plywood base. The front rounded columns both had been damaged and had bits of veneer missing. One broke free at the seam with the front panel, the other just split near the seam. The left front side had a big chunk knocked out, but it was in the box. Note the rust on the chassis. Also the right side has a piece of bottom molding missing. Of course, this wasn't mentioned by the seller.
The good news was that the chassis was securely fastened to the base with rusted chassis bolts. While that may not sound like much of a consolation, this little bit of luck kept the chassis from smashing around inside (what was left of) the wood box. Also the places where the field coil speaker mounted were not delaminated. This kept the speaker firmly attached and prevented it from doing some serious damage, as it is pretty heavy too.
This is a shot of the chassis after de-rusing.
This is the finished product. I left the yellowed dial cover in place and chose not to replace it. It looks pretty striking lit up. The radio itself performs exceptionally well on all bands, including both short wave bands. The SW stations tune in very quickly. The venier dial helps with that.
