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I was lucky to find this wonderful radio on eBay for only $2.25. It is all original, missing only the speaker, and back cover.. if it had one. The art-deco knobs, the beautiful, solid and well engineered handset, and most of the fastenings are all original. |
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I don't know how many yachts named Star-Dust there were in the late 1930's, but I did find one made in 1939, which exists today in Connecticut. I'm going to contact the present owner to see if he knows if it was owned by an A.F. Lane. Imagine the cardboard label being carefully penned by Mr.Lane about 70 years ago, then slipped under it's celluloid cover. And it sat under that cover ever since then. |
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This is an odd thing. The
chassis
has this aluminum addition for the power supply, which is hand made
(and not especially well). It is a vibrator power supply for the high
plate voltage. I've been thinking about the reason someone may have added this section to the radio, and I think I have it: If the radio originally had a dynamotor high voltage generator, then an owner may have wanted to switch to this type, for several reasons. Dynamotors are particularly noisy, for one thing. I also think they draw more power than the vibrator type (although I do not know for sure), so someone may have wanted to save some "juice" on thier boat. If this is the case, then I will find four or so dynamotor mounting holes in it... next time I have the radio opened up. |
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It needs a good cleaning. But my hat goes off to the last owner, who owns a motorcycle restoration shop. He had it in his shop for "many years", and took the time and effort to sell it on ebay. And he packed it more carefully then anything I have won in eight years. I take that to mean he wanted it to survive... because he certainly did not go through the trouble for a couple of dollars. The radio is labeled 6 or 12 volts, with a 6v filament string. I'll try to fire it up with a power supply after cleaning it up, and installing a speaker. |
