Northern Midge Electric Radio

[hornet]

I finally got a chance to do some work on my radio, had this radio for years .
I found this little jem at a second hand store for $6.00 , needed a new tube but is now working and restored.
I do believe it is a 1952 +/- Northern Midge Electric.
Enjoy the pics!

 

[texaskirbyguy]

What a STEAL for only 6 bucks!! Very cute radio.
The one who priced it must have thought it was just a newer Chinesium retro replica..
Glad it was an easy fix and hope you enjoy it for a long time to come.

 

[funvacfan]

What

a beauty!

 

[kirbylux77]

Wow! What a stylish neat little radio. You got quite the bargain there!!

 

[hornet]

Thank guys I will enjoy this radio for many years.
It took me a long time to figure out how I wanted to paint this radio so it would look cool, so in the end I went with raspberry for the main body with a satin black front face then I put 24 k gold leaf into the speaker grooves followed by hand painting the edges in white then used brilliant gold paint and hand painted the lettering on the logo then used a traditional gold paint for the dial with a final coat of clear to finish everything up.
It was a fun restoration now have to find a another antique to restore.

 

[human]

I love old radios. I've got two of them now, a Philco AM radio that's kind of a plain jane affair, and a German Telefunken (love the name) that's AM (labeled MW), FM, and shortwave and has a beautiful honey colored wood cabinet.

We had the coolest Zenith clock radio from the early '50s. It stayed in my room for a long time, until I got an AM/FM clock radio with a digital clock in the mid '70s. I know I saw the Zenith as recently as the mid/late '90s. No idea what became of it; however, I did find a Web site (below) with pictures of one just like it. The main difference between that one and the one we had was it had a couple of little triangular icons on the dial to indicate the Civil Defense frequencies. Cold war design at its finest.

https://radioattic.com/item.htm?radio=1480129

 

[kirbyklekter]

When AM radio was king!

Very cool radio and restoration. I remember hearing that back when AM was mostly all people listened to that the tuners were of much better quality. As FM came on the air and became so popular, AM took a back seat. They even had AM stereo radio at one time. I don't know who broadcast AM in stereo, or where, but it happened.

 

[kirbyklekter]

When AM radio was king!

Very cool radio and restoration. I remember hearing that back when AM was mostly all people listened to that the tuners were of much better quality. As FM came on the air and became so popular, AM took a back seat. They even had AM stereo radio at one time. I don't know who broadcast AM in stereo, or where, but it happened.

 

[human]

AM Stereo

AM stereo came in around the end of the '70s. I remember a couple of the AM stations where I grew up started broadcasting in stereo in the early '80s, but it was kind of a moot point because nobody had an AM stereo receiver. I remember thinking at the time, who wants to listen to static in stereo? And of course, in the '90s, most AM stations had switched their format to news/sports/propaganda talk, with little or no music being played, so what was the point?

 

[tolivac]

Yes,when I was in the commercial broadcast business AM stereo was big-but for a little while.I do have a Sony Walkman style AM stereo -FM stereo radio.Used the FM more.At the station end there was the encoder that connected to the transmitter.Transmitters built at that time adn later were compatible.BUT--- as AM stereo dwindled in popularity--station often gave away their stereo encoders-this was gear that cost many thousands of dollars-only to be given to a radio collector for---FREE!