Western Americana, Antiques & Furnishings Auction Closed (#26704717)

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Lot # C114

Learadio Model 566 Bakelite Tube Radio — 1946 Art Deco, Tested Functional View Watchlist >

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Winning Bid: $150.00
24 Bid(s) View Bid History
High Bidder: Victor

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Lot # C114
System ID # 26826789

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Description

Learadio Model 566 Bakelite Tube Radio — 1946 Art Deco, Tested Functional

A Learadio Model 566 is a 1946 five-tube AM tabletop radio in a dark brown Bakelite cabinet — built in the first full year after World War II, when American manufacturers finally turned their tooling back toward the living room and Bakelite radio design hit its creative peak.

The man behind it is half the story. William P. Lear invented the car radio in 1929, founded Lear, Inc. in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and would later create the Learjet. The Model 566 sits quietly between those two chapters — a domestic object made by one of the twentieth century's great tinkerers, at the precise moment his country was ready to sit down, exhale, and listen to something.

The cabinet draws from two currents running through 1940s American industrial design. The horizontal ribbing and rounded silhouette echo Streamline Moderne — the design language borrowed from aeronautics and locomotive styling that promised speed, progress, and modernity even while standing still. The X-brace grille overlay and acanthus-leaf moldings flanking the dial pull in the opposite direction, reaching back toward Art Deco's taste for ornament and symmetry. The result is a cabinet that feels like it's moving and settled at the same time — taut lines softened by decorative detail, machine logic dressed in something closer to jewelry. The amber ribbed knobs against the near-black Bakelite are the finishing touch: warm, tactile, and unmistakably of their moment.

The back panel retains its original tube placement chart, serial number B54764, and an Underwriters Laboratories reexamination sticker — unaltered, unstripped, and entirely intact.

CONDITION
Very Good. Sounds great! Powers on, knobs turn, and stations are received — performing as designed nearly eight decades on. The cabinet shows gentle signs of use with no remarkable cosmetic damage; a fine hairline crack is visible at the top left corner.

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