Uploaded September 2023 | Updated September 2026, 12 hours ago
If you've ever been to a flea market with your kids, you've heard the words "can we go HOME nowww???" This is rather like, "Are we there yet?" spoken from the backseat of a car for the umpteenth time. But at the flea market, it's "can we go HOME now?" I've heard that many times. Well, eventually those kids grew up and moved away. And now, surprisingly, go to flea markets on their own occasionally, voluntarily, or so I hear. Anyway, without them accompanying me, I've been able to return to my natural approach to flea markets--go early, and stay late. Because you never know when the magic's going to happen.
Yes it was very late in the day. I was drifting through the aisles one last time as the vendors were beginning to pack up. "What had I seen earlier?," I asked myself," that I kind of wanted and would now be a bargain if it hadn't already been sold?" Well, nothing I could think of. So I just continued drifting. As I approach a rickety old card table set up along the side of one of the aisles, I see a seller dumping out onto it the contents of a smallish cardboard box. What's this?, says I, arriving on the scene just in time. I don't know if I said that out loud or just to myself, but I quickly picked up and began looking over the stuff, THIS stuff, classic radio junk out of some old guy's radio room or garage or drawer. The vendor tells me, "Oh we forgot to put this out. $10 if you want it." I recognized one of the items from my Toy Crystal Radios book, the Revell Radaradio from 1947. But the chassis has a tube sticking out of it so I realized this must be the tube version of that little radio, the Modernair 500. Well, I say that now, but I really didn't recall the name at that moment. I was already into gimme gimme gimme mode... so I said to the seller "Ten dollars..." hoping she will confirm it's ten dollars for everything, and sure enough she says, "yes, ten dollars for the whole box." So I give it my best, "sure, why not" kind of attitude, hand over the ten dollars, and off I go with this good pile of junk.
So let's just see what I've got here. This Philmore thing, which amusingly says "This is a Philmore Product" right on the side of it. As if with their unique and interesting packaging they would even need to say that. Anyway, it's a variable condenser. New old stock. The box calls it "midget variable condenser." Well, alright. And now here's a "transistor loop," it says, for the AM broadcast band. It's a Miller Quality Product, from the makers of, quote, "radio coils and allied products," based in Los Angeles. This is a nice looking box too which lists and describes the other products offered by the Miller people. And it says they've been at it "Since 1924." ...Well, look at this. All wrapped in paper like things used to be. Made in America. I hesitate to even open this up, but I will. It's an antenna bar, the kind you'd see in a portable radio. The accompanying paper is a virtual catalog of their products--antenna coils, or 'loops,' IF coils, oscillator coils, and a variable condenser. On the back, they suggest and show a couple of schematic diagrams for transistor radio hobbyists.
And here is something from Raytheon in one of their little cardboard envelopes. 1N34 / 1N66. Now those are diode numbers, crystal diodes so that's what I'd expect to find inside. And that's what I do find, marked 1N66. Smaller than I would have thought. The Raytheon transistors seen in these sorts of envelopes are quite large. But this diode is just as small as the ones found in early '60s transistor radios. Crystal diodes made in the middle '50s were generally larger, like the Sylvania crystal diode seen here.
Now everything else here seems to be related to the radio, this cute little radio that looks like a miniature table-style radio. Radios this size were often configured to fit into a pocket but this one is styled like a table model. There's a coil of wire which I assume to be for an antenna, or ground. And the earphone is a heavy little gizmo on which it says "Receiver, type R-14, made by Kellogg S&S Co. for Signal Corps., U.S. Army." Ah ha! So, Army surplus. Lots of Army surplus found its way into commercial products. The U.S. taxpayer could pay for it once, for the armed forces, then pay for it again as a commercial product. Such a deal. The name on this, Kellogg, was a maker of telephones in wide use in the American midwest in the early and mid 20th century. The company was "Kellogg Switchboard and Supply Company"--so that's the 'Kellogg S&S'-- and they were based in Chicago.
And here's the knob--there's just the one knob, for tuning.. this radio has no volume knob, just an on/off switch on the back. And the cabinet. Yes, it is the Modernair. I don't know if I want to clean this up or not. The part of me that says "patina, man! leave it alone!" is shouting in my ear. I like this gear in here. It meshes with the tuning shaft to move the pointer along. .
If you've ever been to a flea market with your kids, you've heard the words "can we go HOME nowww???" This is rather like, "Are we there yet?" spoken from the backseat of a car for the umpteenth time. But at the flea market, it's "can we go HOME now?" I've heard that many times. Well, eventually those kids grew up and moved away. And now, surprisingly, go to flea markets on their own occasionally, voluntarily, or so I hear. Anyway, without them accompanying me, I've been able to return to my natural approach to flea markets--go early, and stay late. Because you never know when the magic's going to happen.
Yes it was very late in the day. I was drifting through the aisles one last time as the vendors were beginning to pack up. "What had I seen earlier?," I asked myself," that I kind of wanted and would now be a bargain if it hadn't already been sold?" Well, nothing I could think of. So I just continued drifting. As I approach a rickety old card table set up along the side of one of the aisles, I see a seller dumping out onto it the contents of a smallish cardboard box. What's this?, says I, arriving on the scene just in time. I don't know if I said that out loud or just to myself, but I quickly picked up and began looking over the stuff, THIS stuff, classic radio junk out of some old guy's radio room or garage or drawer. The vendor tells me, "Oh we forgot to put this out. $10 if you want it." I recognized one of the items from my Toy Crystal Radios book, the Revell Radaradio from 1947. But the chassis has a tube sticking out of it so I realized this must be the tube version of that little radio, the Modernair 500. Well, I say that now, but I really didn't recall the name at that moment. I was already into gimme gimme gimme mode... so I said to the seller "Ten dollars..." hoping she will confirm it's ten dollars for everything, and sure enough she says, "yes, ten dollars for the whole box." So I give it my best, "sure, why not" kind of attitude, hand over the ten dollars, and off I go with this good pile of junk.
So let's just see what I've got here. This Philmore thing, which amusingly says "This is a Philmore Product" right on the side of it. As if with their unique and interesting packaging they would even need to say that. Anyway, it's a variable condenser. New old stock. The box calls it "midget variable condenser." Well, alright. And now here's a "transistor loop," it says, for the AM broadcast band. It's a Miller Quality Product, from the makers of, quote, "radio coils and allied products," based in Los Angeles. This is a nice looking box too which lists and describes the other products offered by the Miller people. And it says they've been at it "Since 1924." ...Well, look at this. All wrapped in paper like things used to be. Made in America. I hesitate to even open this up, but I will. It's an antenna bar, the kind you'd see in a portable radio. The accompanying paper is a virtual catalog of their products--antenna coils, or 'loops,' IF coils, oscillator coils, and a variable condenser. On the back, they suggest and show a couple of schematic diagrams for transistor radio hobbyists.
And here is something from Raytheon in one of their little cardboard envelopes. 1N34 / 1N66. Now those are diode numbers, crystal diodes so that's what I'd expect to find inside. And that's what I do find, marked 1N66. Smaller than I would have thought. The Raytheon transistors seen in these sorts of envelopes are quite large. But this diode is just as small as the ones found in early '60s transistor radios. Crystal diodes made in the middle '50s were generally larger, like the Sylvania crystal diode seen here.
Now everything else here seems to be related to the radio, this cute little radio that looks like a miniature table-style radio. Radios this size were often configured to fit into a pocket but this one is styled like a table model. There's a coil of wire which I assume to be for an antenna, or ground. And the earphone is a heavy little gizmo on which it says "Receiver, type R-14, made by Kellogg S&S Co. for Signal Corps., U.S. Army." Ah ha! So, Army surplus. Lots of Army surplus found its way into commercial products. The U.S. taxpayer could pay for it once, for the armed forces, then pay for it again as a commercial product. Such a deal. The name on this, Kellogg, was a maker of telephones in wide use in the American midwest in the early and mid 20th century. The company was "Kellogg Switchboard and Supply Company"--so that's the 'Kellogg S&S'-- and they were based in Chicago.
And here's the knob--there's just the one knob, for tuning.. this radio has no volume knob, just an on/off switch on the back. And the cabinet. Yes, it is the Modernair. I don't know if I want to clean this up or not. The part of me that says "patina, man! leave it alone!" is shouting in my ear. I like this gear in here. It meshes with the tuning shaft to move the pointer along. .
