I have three Stromberg-Carlson radios, a 130-J, a 130-U, and this is the first one I've bought that had a good cabinet. The 130-J is missing pieces and veneer and the finish is a disaster; the -U arrived with handling damage in transit and the cabinet is now a 3-D puzzle that I have to assemble and glue together. But this one, damn it, looks good. $60, which was too low for me to ignore. Plus it's got the knobs and the push buttons. And the dial cord is intact. The grille cloth looks bad but at least it isn't torn.

I haven't opened this up yet; I'm afraid to look inside; a previous owner screwed perf-board on the back so I can't see inside (they way used to do with old TV sets). It doesn't have the original AC cord; at least it wasn't snipped off.

The seller said it worked but also noted it "lit up," so I don't know if that just means it lights up without smoking, or if it really does work. We'll see..

I took a picture of the dial detail. One of the things I like about Stromberg-Carlson is that they were a high-end manufacturer, and they put extra effort into making things look good. Most other manufacturers would have gone with a plain dial background.

Background: the Model 325 is the chassis designation. S-C (as did a lot of manufacturers) like to put one chassis into several different cabinets, hoping each different cabinet would appeal to a different customer. The letter designation is the cabinet. This -H is a table model with the diamond over the speaker grill. The -J has an arched grill with what I see as a horse-shoe inside it. The -S was a chairside with drop-leaf sides, and I believe it had a phonograph. Each of those B variants but I haven't figured out what difference that makes (might be the 50Hz AC power transformer version).

This tunes 530 kHz to 18 MHz in two ranges (BC and shortwave). SW starts at 5.8 MHz which cuts out some still-active World Band broadcasts, which is a shame. It might be possible to adjust the lower SW to pick up 5 MHz. I'll have to try that.

Tube compliment (nothing exotic, happily)::

6A6 - oscillator / converter
6K7 - IF amp
6Q7 - 2nd detector / AVC / 1st audio
6V6 - power audio out
80 - rectum fryer

Riders Perpetual: Volume 10-13