Exactly as pictured, missing a small bit of trim on the left side, no knobs or tubes.
Note this is an original item, not a reproduction.
Provenance? I'm glad you asked.
When I was a kid our family was pretty poor. Not the "I got an X-Box 360 for Christmas but I really wanted a WI" kinda poor that frequents the foodbanks nowadays, more the "My father was a dustman, he wears a dustman's cap" kinda poor. Anyways, one day he brought this radio home. Well, not a radio per-se, it was just the case but it was good enough for us. Every night, as we huddled about the fire he'd put the radio on his head and give us the news.
"Thees ees radio Reichssender Hamburg" he said in a funny voice, and then it changed "Germany Calling...." he said in another funny voice, all proper sounding, and he began to give us news of the war.
Now we didn't even know we were at war, so this came as something of a shock....And we listened, rapt around the fire until he pulled the newspapers over us and told us it was time to go to sleep.
The next day I was so excited I told one of my friends at school about the radio: "Our family got a new radio..." I said, and she said: "So what? We've got 2 color TV's" and I decided then and there I wasn't going to tell anyone anything. They probably didn't even know about the war.
And every night we'd huddle about the fire and he'd give us broadcasts. We learned to recognize the German and the English accents and would boo radio Reichssender Hamburg and cheer on the English. One night, I'll never forget, things were looking real bad for the English when the Prime Minister came on and told us:
"This then, my lords and gentlemen, is the message which we send forth today to all states and nations, bound or free, to all the men in all the lands who care for freedom's cause. To our Allies and well-wishers in Europe, to our American friends and helpers drawing ever closer in their might across the ocean, this is the message-lift up your hearts, all will come right. Out of depths of sorrow and sacrifice will be born again the glory of mankind."
There was more, lots more, but that's all I remembered.
And when I slept that night I dreamed of bombers flying overhead and Nazi's goosestepping through the streets of London.
***
It wasn't all war though. If we could get Dad to stand up and move his arms around we could sometimes get the "Grand Ole Opry" and we'd sing along, or we'd laugh at "Amos and Andy" until he got tired and wanted to sit down. For those couple hours a night we didn't feel so poor, we seemed like just another normal family.
Once in a while when he went to bed he'd forget the radio on and we could hear him talking ..."One...Four....Seven....Four....Seven.....Two....One...." and one of us would eventually get up and pull the radio off his head so we could get some sleep.
***
It was supposed to be a surprise but Dad couldn't keep it in, one night he told us we were going to go on vacation. Now we'd never been on vacation, this was something new, we'd just have to get to New Jersey and he'd get us tickets to get on an airship. "The Hindenberg" it was called, it was a Zeppelin and way, way better than any of the planes we could see flying overhead, and I was a bit suspicious "Aren't we at war with the Germans" I said and I don't remember his answer because when you're going on vacation in an airship you don't ask too many questions. The important thing was we'd have to get to New Jersey because you can't just land a Zeppelin at an airport like a plane they have to be docked like ships and so we'd have to take a small vacation to go on vacation and I wondered how we got to be suddenly so rich.
But that night on the radio we got some bad news. By good luck we'd tuned into the docking of the zeppelin in New Jersey (Dad had to stand on one leg and touch a hand to a broken aerial), it sounded pretty good - then the disaster:
"It burst into flames! It burst into flames, and it's falling, it's crashing! Watch it! Watch it, folks! Get out of the way! Get out of the way! Get this, Charlie! Get this, Charlie! It's fire—and it's crashing! It's crashing terrible! "
None of slept that night. We didn't even think about our vacation, all we thought of was those poor people on the zeppelin and secretly I was happy we didn't go, I didn't care if I got a vacation in my whole entire life.