1937 Silvertone 4666 Large All-wave 10-tube Table Radio
Rare 1937 Overlapping Layer Tele- Plus Rolling Pin Dial All-wave Radio with Electronic Enhancements
In a Nutshell
From 1937 ad: "It's packed with THRILLS and will make you and your family take a New Interest in World Affairs, Geography and History"
Introduction:
The Silvertone model 4666 is a high-end radio made for the Sears Roebuck Department Store in 1937. Sears bought from quite a variety of manufacturers, that are easily identified: the first 3 digits of the catalog number (here 101.483) reveal the manufacturer, the source code 101 standing for the Colonial Radio Corporation in Buffalo, NY. (formerly King Quality), that trumped even Stewart Warner (100) as the most prolific supplier until WW2, and had stopped selling radios as Colonial in 1935 (ref.3). Father and son Yedidovich on their website sfhobbies.com (ref.1) call the cabinet design the "Overlapping Layer Style" of radios and identify its creator as the "Salvador Dali" of radio art deco design. Another very similar 1937 radio in the same style with 8 tubes, that I had restored before, can be found in ref.4. 1937 was the only year that the Sears catalog featured radios with teledial automatic tuning, an automatic selector for up to 11 preselected radio stations working like a telephone dial, that had been pioneered by Grigsby Grunow. The automatic has a "Whisper Tuning" feature that blanks out noise between stations. Another rare feature is the adjustable selectivity control for eliminating interference from nearby signals. It is obtained by varying the coupling between primary and secondary of the first IF filter with a two position switch, and results in a 3 times higher sensitivity in the "Sharp" position, that should be used in particular for short wave reception. With 10 watts of undistorted audio power from a pair of push-pull 6V6 tubes into an 8" speaker, and a 3-position tone control the radio is best suited to also amplify other sound sources like phonographs, and more recently mp3 etc. players and cellphones. For this purpose a 3.5mm closed circuit phone adapter has been installed.
About my Radio:
The radio is in excellent condition, the cabinet has its original finish, the few unoffending irregularities not warranting a refinishing. As is rarely the case (see ref.5) also the original tenite escutcheon could be saved, and remounted. All other parts, including knobs, speaker and speaker cloth are original too. A new old stock (NOS) new in box (NIB) 6E5 magic eye tube has been installed and the chassis partially recapped. All moveable parts have been treated with contact spray. The radio plays fine on all bands, which is hard to demonstrate since AM reception at my place in South Chilliwack is very poor. Various transmitters and the newly installed phone plug have been used in a youtube video showing the radio working (ref.6 or click on thumbnail 41). Please e-mail me (Kris) for any questions, ich spreche Deutsch, je parle Français.
Here are the specifications:
Technical Description of Item
Manufacturer
Colonial Radio Co., Buffalo, NY for Silvertone by Sears Roebuck & Co., Chicago
Model
4666, Catalog No. 100.486
Serial number
403577
Year
1937
Type
10-tube 3-band superheterodyne receiver
Cabinet
Multitone wood
Controls
On/off-volume, band select, tuning, low noise and bandwidth switch, tone
Frequencies
American 540-1800 kc, Intermediate 1.75-5.1 MHz, Foreign 5.9-18.2 MHz
