Clocks & Music
1934 Atwater Kent 185 Art Deco Tombstone Tube Radio Restored with Bluetooth
1934 Atwater Kent 185 Art Deco Tombstone Tube Radio Restored with Bluetooth
This 1934 Atwater Kent Model 185 is one of the most dramatically styled tombstone radios of its era, its black-trimmed cabinet faced in bias-cut walnut veneer and accented with brass and aluminum inlays running the full height of the case. A wide woven grille dominates the center panel above a small silver dial window and control knob, flanked on either side by tall vertical grille cutouts, matching brass Atwater Kent badges, and a pair of Bakelite knobs.
The 185 is a five-tube AC superheterodyne set with a 264 kHz IF, built around type 57, 58, 2A6, 2A5, and 80 tubes, tuned to the standard broadcast and police bands and driven through a large 8-inch electromagnetic dynamic speaker for notably full, room-filling sound. Some examples of this chassis also picked up early experimental television audio in the 75 to 200 meter range, a reminder of how fluid the boundary between radio and the earliest television broadcasts still was in the mid-1930s.
Atwater Kent was, by the early 1930s, the largest radio manufacturer in the country, and the 185's cabinet reflects a company willing to take real design risks even at that scale, its bold geometric metal inlays and bias-cut veneer paneling considerably more adventurous than the more conservative tombstones many competitors were producing at the time. The cabinet's construction, with its many contrasting veneer sections and inlaid metal strips, has made well-preserved examples like this one genuinely difficult to find in fully original condition.
This example has been restored and equipped with Bluetooth through a 1/8 inch adapter, allowing a smartphone, tablet, computer, or record player to connect and play through the radio's original tube driven sound. The result pairs modern convenience with the warm tone of a vintage Atwater Kent set, housed in one of the boldest and most distinctive Art Deco radio cabinets of the 1930s.
