Raytheon Model 5R-12R Bakelite Radio

I'm a sucker for red radios, so when I heard about this one, I just had to have it. I bought it from a gentleman in Iowa, who threw in a full set of replacement tubes (12AV6, 12BA6, 12BE6, 35W4, 50C5) as a little bonus.

This set is painted Bakelite. Red is the original color. It also came in white (Model 5R-11W) and mahogany (Model 5R-10B).

It's interesting how the grill louvers bend gently upward in their middles, rather than running straight across the front. Perhaps this is done to accentuate the sweeping effect of this very long gold dial pointer. The Raytheon name appears in molded relief below the pointer's base.

You don't run across Raytheon tube sets very often. I've seen only a couple of others mentioned in collector guides. If anybody can point me to more info, including this model's date of manufacture, please shoot some email in this direction.

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