Does anyone have a source for the 1920's tinsel wiring? Don't think AES
has it anymore.

Link > Jack Pine Cords

For the places where you don't care as much about original appearance, vacuum cleaner power cord makes good speaker wire. The ribbed insulation doesn't look as out of place as the modern slick stuff, it is highly flexible, and is a good fit in most plugs. You only have to find one junk cleaner sitting on the curb to get a lifetime supply.

Jay

Thanks Guys,

Will check the sources out

A Google search revealed sever vendors. Go beyond he first page and find listings for both spools and by the foot. Described as for "speaker repair" so might be the right stuff.
Dave

Hi Guys,

Just wanted to follow up a little. Have a Freed Eisemann FE50 speaker with a good
Western Electric driver that needed rewired. The speaker has an odd configuration
in that it requires lugs, rather than phone tips or spade connectors on the driver side.

Now, the primary sources never responded at all. (Jackpine and oldradiosareus.) I contacted
phonecoinc.com (being the driver is Western Electric) and they responded immediately.
They were able to provide a cord with no problem at all, and were very interested in
helping the radio community in addition to their phone business. They were friendly, very
responsive, and interested in how they could help in the problem.

I'd definitely give them a call should you need the cloth covered speaker wire, as its pretty
much the same as antique phone wire of the period.

Phoneco will also provide the correct lugs to terminate cloth-covered
tinsel wire.

Another trick I learned recently is to easily terminate that wire with
phone tips, I crimp on a lug, cut the end of the lug off so the crimp
section is still present, fill the phone tip with solder, flux the crimp,
and then bury that in the solder.