Vintage Radio Batteries

Here's an assortment of old batteries that I have found in old radios or junkboxes. All of them are made by Eveready, except for the little yellow flashlight battery at the lower left, made by Reliant.

Most old radios used two batteries. The A battery supplied filament current (usually 1.5 volts) to the tubes, and the B battery supplied a higher voltage (often 90 volts or 47.5 volts} to the rest of the radio.

King of them all by far is the Eveready 752, the long battery stretching across the photo. It was used in the Zenith TransOceanic portable and copycat radios. It supplies both A and B current in a single package.

The blue battery at lower left is a more modern unit from England. Similar to the chunky 9-volt flashlight battery in America, it is used in my Roberts R200 portable.

The long cylindrical battery at lower right is a 1.5-volt A battery.

To learn more about battery power or to build your own AC adapter for old battery radios, see the article, Powering Your Antique Battery Radio.

©1995-2023 Philip I. Nelson, all rights reserved