The Venerable Glass Rod Radio, made by Zenith for the 1939 World's Exhibition in New York - with a little Surprise

In a Nutshell
The radio was seriously begging me: "Do it" - so I did it (see techies)

Note added Oct.14, 2015:
This radio is sold, but here is the second one:
http://www.radio-antiks.com/IndexRadio-Antiks_Zenith_6D317_2.htm

Introduction:
The 1939 World's Fair, "Building The World of Tomorrow" opened in April in New York. Wedged between the great depression and the beginning of World War II, the Fair's president Grover Whalen outlined its purpose as "to place en route the world's resources in a gigantic crusade against man's chief foes: inertia, lassitude, and chance." Celebrities like President F. D. Roosevelt (opening address on TV), Albert Einstein (switched the Fair's lighting system on), Norman Bel Geddes (GM's Futurama), Gilbert Rohde (Community Interest Exhibit), Raymond Loewy (Transportation Exhibit) actively contributed to its tremendous success. GE's lightening generator, ATT's speech synthesizer, RCA's TV ("picture radio") debut, Westinghouse's walking/talking robot were only some of the Fair's lasting firsts.
Zenith's 5-R-317 and 6-D-317 "Glass Rod" radio was marketed as "The World's Fair Special" for the 1939 model year. Its prominent and unique feature is the use of 12 glass rods, interspersed with 11 gold-painted wooden rods, as speaker grille. It is unavoidable to be reminded at the capitals Capitol (pict.49). The radio came with 3 different chassis (first digit = number of tubes), 4B317 (battery), 5R317 (transformer) and 6D317 (All-American Five with ballast tube). For sale here is the last version. All versions feature Zenith's "Transcontinental Tip-Touch Tuning" innovation, "the most perfect tuning since Zenith first put Automatic Tuning on a radio in 1928". The original purchase price of this radio was $29.95.

Additional information:
 ref.1.    http://www.websyte.com/alan/nywf.htm
 ref.2.    http://www.tuberadioland.com/zenith5-R-317_main.html
 ref.3.    http://www.radiophile.com/6d317.htm
 ref.4.    http://www.radiomuseum.org
 ref.5.    http://www.pareled.com/images.html

About my radio:
The radio's cabinet is refinished using Mohawk products and observing a very conservative attitude when deciding between authenticity and the new trend for high-gloss refinishing. The back plane has been remodeled after the original from thick phenolic card-board (pict.s 5, 10, 11, 15, 38, 47). Not a single one of the infamous wax capacitors had to be replaced (pict.30). The ballast tube is a generic configurable JFD Type B (pict.45). The chassis is cleaned and in-depth serviced. All moving parts have been treated with contact spray. The speaker cone had little splits, that have been glued and don't influence its function (pict.31). The radio plays loud and clear on AM/BC, where it has good sensitivity and selectivity over the whole band spread. The push-buttons for preselecting AM stations (Automatic Tip-Touch Tuning) are working perfectly. The radio has been uninvasively and reversibly modified to let the glass rods glow, enabled with a separate switch (see techies). Please e-mail me (Kris) for any questions or comments, ich spreche Deutsch, je parle Français.

For the techies only:
Inspired by my son's development of a Foldable LED Luminaire (see ref.5 above) and convinced of the jaw-dropping effect I created the "Glowing Glass Rod" radio (pict.s 19-24). Twelve white SMD LEDs (pict.46) are placed in the little gap on top of each of the 12 glass rods (pict.41), connected in series, preceded by a current limiting resistor and powered by a DC voltage generated by a bridge rectifier from an AC voltage, supplied by the radio's tube heater string (pict.s 40-44). The LED's can be switched on and off with a miniscule extra switch at the back (pict.47). The whole modification did not alter the radio in any way except one little screw hole on the inside bottom of the cabinet to hold the PC for the LED power supply. The modification can only be noticed by the presence of the little switch and can easily be undone. The effect is as expected - jaw-dropping (pict.s 19-24): a uniform blue glow over the entire lengths of the rods. Pict. 23 seems to indicate that blue LEDs are on the bottom of the rods, whereas they are white and on top. How comes? The light is partly channeled by the glass surface from top to bottom, where it is randomly diffused back by the unpolished end. The glow visible from outside, is mostly generated by light scattering in glass and reflections from intrinsic and surface imperfections. The blue hue of the light generated by a white LED, is caused by the same effect, that makes our sky look blue: wave-length dependent Rayleigh scattering of light, which enhances the blue side of the spectrum. The imperfections look white since reflection is not depending on wave-length. Finally, by looking at pict.s 21, 22, 24 it seems color to disappear at night, which is not the case, but simply a reflection of the construction of the human eye: retinal cones, that are sensitive to color don't get enough light intensity at night, whereas the much more sensitive rod cells get sufficient light, but can only see black and white. The fact that one can demonstrate this intensity dependence of the color sensitivity, by showing a picture taken with a digital camera, suggests, that its sensor exhibits a response very similar to that of the human eye.
Here is my personal view of the modification: it is not only legitimate, but a duty to maximize the overall appearance of this venerable old lady. J. S. Bach would have composed for a Blüthner Grand Piano instead for a clavicord or hammered piano, if he were born 150 years later, and Jaques Loussier would have been his most favorite interpreter. I don't share the "played on original instruments" hype in classic chamber music. But you are the judge and can choose the clavicord, by simply asking me to remove the LEDs.

Here are the specifications:

Please have a look at more radios, phonographs and gramophones  here
Here we go to  my eBay auctions (stay tuned)
and here to  my craigslist ads (stay tuned)
and here to my usedvancouver shop
and here to my website (permanently under construction)

Thank you for viewing