Radio Era archives has on their website a special presentation military green 7G605 that was apparently factory made for a major. Anyone heard of anything like this before? In green? I've seen examples of personalized radios with the owners name on the dial, and two BROWN alligator material covered sets, but not one like this before.

http://www.radioera.com/7g605.htm

Hey Shawn hows life in the North country? Wow, I can't believe this radio. I thought my light brown one was and odd duck. It was also dedicated to a military man who must have been special.







It definately looks original, and has some odd features like the light colored BC pushbutton and the special bracket under the chassis. The face looks like it is not covered in material but just plain painted wood. The rest does indeed look like it's covered in a oil cloth or something equivelent. I think it's odd that the Major's name does not appear on the dial face but under it where you can't see it from the outside. This is a very cool radio, I think I would have used an original handle however instead of that strap style. When I got my radio the handle was missing as many of them are but I used one off a parts companion radio as to keep it as original looking as possible. I did not even remove the rivet studs that hold the handle brackets to the radio because I was afraid of changing the radio in any way, so I sinply cut the handle and resewn it once it was installed on the radio. I think the knobs would have been black and not white also. These one of a kind radios are special and have historical significance. Thanks for brining it to our attention as I would have missed it, Regards, Art.

Why would you put Signal Corps insignia on a personally-owned radio?

Does that make three brown 7G605s? I have one, Zenithman2003, and R-520? Or just me and Zenithman?

W3JN: Hi long time no talk. No I think we are the only two with these light brown ones. looking at the pictures again I can see there is also an RCA plug on the lower left side of the cabinet but I don't see any wiring for it in the rear pictures. maybe it's just the angle. I had called this outfit that has the virtual museum that owns this radio about a year and a half ago. The reason for my call to them was I saw a R520A on e-bay with the same designation ID tag for sale. I was curious as to what the deal was. He told me that they had sold that radio years ago to "someone who wanted it alot more then he did". So his museum is indeed virtual as I purchased this radio from the woman who had it listed. She told me it was part of an estate she had purchased. I guess he sells off these radios but keeps the pictures up in his online museum. I never made a big deal about it if he wants to picture it there I don't care, but it does not reside there. Anyway after introducing myself and telling him I was from CT he told me that he would not hold that against me, and answered my question. He then went on to tell me about this one of a kind 7G605 that he had come across and that it had just a black grill cloth so I don't know where the pins came from. If I remember correctly he mentioned that he would be looking for about 5,000 for it. I think I told you about it at the time, and you said if somone wanted to pay you 5,000 for yours it would be gone in a minute.
Anyway, Zenith did not produce a true military verson of this radio, I'm thinking it's a special presentation 7G605 to the Major. It's hard to see but I believe the model number is missing from the wave magnet antenna hold down block, as it is with yours, and mine. So it was probubly removed from the line and worked on buy someone at the factory. I don't know why he did not picture the painted name on the dial in any of the photos while the chassis was out. I would have thought that would have lended credence to his story. Still does not make any sense not painting it where you could see it as steeling this radio and trying to get away with it would be impossible.

No, I'm not quite lucky enough to own one of these (at least not yet). But I do have a 7G that is in VERY poor shape, missing chuncks of material, cabinet in rough physical shape, latches missing, etc. It would be a good candidate for making one of these green radios.



Personally I think that the white knobs are not right, should be black in my opinion.



I have heard of two other 7G's that had just black grill cloths, appeared to be original to the set, but there were no other differences in the radio. The insignia appear to be too new for this set, but seems to accent the radio nicely. I would have probably stitched the signal corps logo into the grill cloth.

I was just digging through my zenith stuff and found a copy of the Zenith Radio Log from Feb 1942. This magazine was printed exclusively for zenith employees. On the back page is a list of names (more than 150) of employees who were serving in the armed services, Herman Pomy is not listed, but who knows, if he was an employee, maybe he didn't join the service until later.

This magazine also has several letters from zenith employees who are serving in the armed services, one of them from a private who was wounded and received a 7G605 as a gift from zenith.

Indeed, mine would be gone in milliseconds for $5K

Not sure why Zenith would go to the trouble of covering the radio with OD green. It appears the radio was covered with some sort of brown cloth then sloppily painted green (as were the escutcheons).

Who knows if this is factory, or if the Major had one of his corporals re-do his radio for him

Here is the verbiage that Zenith used when making a special order radio. Note that it's the same on the 7G605 from 1940 as it is on the 8G005Y from 1945. Made expressly for and stollen from.

I e-mail Terry about this radio, got a very nice reply:

"Shawn, thank you for your inquiry. The radio physically looks exactly as it was before restoration. From a physical restoration standpoint, we added two old original Zenith "Z" knobs, added a newly made plexiglass dial cover, and added a new leather handle. The radio was missing all of these items. From an electronic standpoint, we recapped all electrolytics and normal paper/wax capaciitors with orange drop and polystyrene new caps. As usual, the rod antenna switch was broken and when it had a mind to make connection, was flaky at best, so we replaced this with a positive two position switch to change over from AM with the wavemagnet to shortwave with the rod antenna. To take a picture of Major Pomy's name on the dial, we will have to dismantle the chassis again to take this picture. I will probably not have time to do this until late next week, but can do so then. Until we put the chassis back in the cabinet, we didn't realize that you could not see his name in Signal Corps Orange because it was painted below all of the standard factory dial data and was below where you can see the dial through the plexiglass cover; but there is no question it is original and authentic. We replaced a couple of missing tubes and replaced a couple that were bad, and one had shorted elements. Then we did an alignment several times while we were fixing the flaky antenna connection problem. Now the radio is working well and clear on both AM and Shortwave stations. Everything else physically about this radio is exactly as we found it.

No there is no "covering" of any kind on the case, it is painted and I didn't want to be the one to changed anything that was not original, so where the paint is flaking (not much), it is original. It would appear that after Zenith painted the case in S.C. OD green color, they painted the insignias on both ends of the case, and stenciled Major Pomy's name on the front. It would appear to me that Major Pomy did not want anyone taking his radio during the war since his name was stenciled and even painted on the dial assembly.

The headphone jack, looks to be original on the side of the radio, but was not hooked up to anything. The chassis, of course, has a headphone connection on it which does work."

No there is no "covering" of any kind on the case, it is painted and I didn't want to be the one to changed anything that was not original, so where the paint is flaking (not much), it is original.


Well there definately is some kind of covering on this radio, it's not just painted wood. If you look at the rear view photos you can see the covering peeling away and hanging down. If it was painted material I would be interested to see what it looks like under the latches once removed. It's definately not painted faux aligator so it has to be covered in something different. Any way you cut the cake it's still cool looking even if it was done at a later date which I doubt. I like your idea of resurecting your beat up 7G605 into something different. I know it's a tabu subject not restoring it to original but I'd like to see a navy motiff.

Could be an individual who liked radios and was proud of his military service and branch. Or it could be someone who was trying to make an ordinary set look like an official or special model.

RRM

Yes, I can understand the crossed-flags insignia, but "US" is the property mark for the US government.

Someplace on ebay is a Zenith TO with red bottom and perhaps sides.

I just noticed, the battery harness is missing for this radio. Not much good as a portable without it.

Shawn, from notes I have from my research on the 7G605:



It is possible Zenith produced a few in olive drab army green (who knows, maybe they looked at green as a possible cabinet version?), but there is no mention of it in the papers I have located.

I saw a few years ago on Ebay a 6G601 portable produced by Zenith for an employee of the company whe went in to the army in 1941, Chester Martin. Both he and his brother were employed by Zenith. The radio had a presentation inscription on the dial scale.

Zenith gave away a 6G601 (or maybe even 7G605 for a few) to every employee who went in to the armed forces during World War II. Zenith posted a list of all those employees in the armed forces each month in the Zenith Radio Log. They numbered 863 in August 1945. I have seen the weekly records of the serial numbers, employee names and that the radios were charged to advertising by the direction of Commander McDonald.

Martin, do you have a list of any serial numbers that were given to celebrities and dignitaries? I just saw the one you posted for President Truman, any others? I am tracking serial numbers of 7G's known to exist, to find out approximately how many of the first run were sailboats. I can e-mail this to you if you are interested.

Can you check to see if the names Herman John Pomy, Thomas F Cullen, or Peggy Blair appear anywhere in Zenith's list of employees who were in the armed services?

Thanks again for the info...

Yes any information on these special radios would be much appreciated. Art.

Alan Douglas wrote:


The gold U.S. is not a property mark.
This radio belonged to a Signal Corp officer. The U.S. insignia is worn on the dress green uniform of all commissioned Army officers.

R-520/URR asked:



I have very few of the orders. There were quite a number in the files, but I only copied a few. The names I found were of notable people, but not necessarily celebrities.

I checked the names you provided. none appear in Zenith Armed Forces "Honor Rolls." They are most likely notable people or quite even possibly family members of Zenith employees?

You sent me a serial list of known 7G605s 1-2 years ago. I would be interested in seeing the updated list. I also have a list of serial numbers as found on item descriptions or photos on Ebay of most post-WWII Transoceanic, Universal, Global and other vacuum tube portables (including RMA/EIA date codes for the speakers, tuners, IF cans, etc, so that a timeline may be established). I can send that if you are interested.