Clocks & Music
1937 Zenith 5-S-119 "Black Dial" Walnut Tube Radio Restored with Bluetooth
1937 Zenith 5-S-119 "Black Dial" Walnut Tube Radio Restored with Bluetooth
This 1937 Zenith Model 5-S-119 is a substantial tabletop set in burled walnut veneer with maple stringing running across the top and sides, its front dominated by Zenith's celebrated "Black Dial," a large circular window backlit in warm ivory with color-coded lettering for each band. Below the dial, four wooden knobs control volume, tone, tuning, and band selection between Broadcast, Shortwave, and Police, each marked A, B, and C on the dial face.
The 5-S-119 is a five-tube superheterodyne set with a 456 kHz IF, driving a six-inch electromagnetic dynamic speaker behind the wraparound grille cut into the left side of the cabinet. Its dial carries two tuning pointers rather than one, a white pointer tracking frequency and a red pointer used for split-second fine tuning, particularly useful on the shortwave band, where a listener could note the red pointer's position against a known station and return to that same frequency precisely on a later session.
Zenith's Black Dial radios, produced across the mid to late 1930s, remain some of the most recognizable and sought after tabletop sets of the prewar era, prized as much for the dial's dramatic glow in a darkened room as for the performance underneath. This example's burled walnut cabinet, with its maple inlay and stepped, banded sides, reflects the more restrained architectural styling Zenith favored for its 1937 tabletop line, a quieter counterpoint to some of the company's more sculptural console designs of the same period.
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 Zenith set, housed in one of the most iconic dial designs of the golden age of American radio.
