Arvin 544AR Bakelite Tabletop (1946)

I picked this great Arvin up at a local antique mall for $25. I've wanted one of these for quite awhile - I love the deco look of this radio. The cord is cut on this one, so we'll assume that it does not work. The paint on the radio is in superb shape, without any chips or nicks. In fact, when I first saw this radio, I was sure that it had originally been a brown radio that had been painted white. Why? Well, how often do you see a white radio with brown knobs? Much to my surprise, I found a picture of this very same radio in Stein's Machine Age to Jet Age, Volume II (p. 66). So, I guess they did come in white with brown knobs after all! Another interesting feature of this radio is that the speaker is on the right side of the case - you almost never see that!