When my parents moved to Florida, I took possession of an antique Crosley Super 11 radio. According to a Web site I found, this radio was built by Crosley (who also owned the Cincinnati Reds) in 1937. This is a big, floor model radio and belonged to my grandparents before it sat in my parents house for around 20 years. I had always said that when I had some extra money, I would get the radio restored.



There's a picture of what it will look like when it is restored. Mine doesn't look quite that good.

The extra money finally came through, in the form of the fee I had earned for handling my great aunt's estate. So today I called Antique Radio Restoration and Repair, a small company in Connecticut that specializes in bringing old radios back to life. I spoke to the owner for over 1/2 hour about the radio, describing it in detail and getting an estimate as to how much it will cost to repair.

I learned a few interesting things. First, this is an 11-tube radio and was the top of the Crosley line at the time (essentially the plasma TV of it's day). I also learned that most radios during this era were made with paper capacitors, which were not expected to have anything approaching a 70 year service life.

Basically, he will rebuild the chassis (the part with all the electronics) using modern, but operationally similar parts to the original with two exceptions. He will add a resettable circuit breaker to protect it from shorts and an inrush current limiter which protects the tubes from the initial surge of current when you first turn the radio on. This effect is why incandescent light bulbs typically burn out when you first turn on the light. Neither of these items were available in 1937, and should add significantly to the life of the tubes.

He will also refurbish the cabinet, including replacing the broken slat in front of the speaker grille, replacing the grille cloth and refinishing the metal work.

He claimed that when I got the radio back it would look and sound like it did the day it came out of the Crosley factory. He also said that it would be the best sounding radio I ever owned. I have my doubts that 70 year old technology will sound as good as my Bose Wave Radio, but I would love to be pleasantly surprised.

The only thing that's a little daunting is the turnaround. He told me that he currently has between 300 and 350 radios in queue awaiting restoration, so his estimate of the time until I get mine back is 15 months!. Not that I'm in a big hurry or anything, but that's a pretty long time.

My plan is that I'll drive the radio down to his shop in Connecticut some Saturday afternoon after A. is back on her feet. It should only be about a 45 minute drive, which is pretty convenient and I can flip up the back seats on the Element and it should easily fit inside. I'll make sure I take a couple of pictures before I bring it in and I will eventually post some "before and after" pictures when it's all finished.