Clocks & Music
1938 Packard Bell 5 Kompak Ivory Plaskon Tube Radio Restored with Bluetooth
1938 Packard Bell 5 Kompak Ivory Plaskon Tube Radio Restored with Bluetooth
This 1938 Packard Bell 5 Kompak is a compact tabletop set in ivory-toned plaskon, an early molded plastic favored for its warm, durable finish. The cabinet's left side carries a stepped, rounded speaker grille with horizontal louvers, while the right side holds a small illuminated dial reading "Packard Bell Kompak" beneath a "Stationized" scale marked with regional station identifiers rather than plain numbers alone, a hallmark of Packard-Bell's prewar and immediate postwar radios sold across California and the Pacific Northwest.
The 5 Kompak is a five-tube AC broadcast receiver, built by the Los Angeles based Packard-Bell Company at a moment when the firm was becoming one of the best known regional radio makers on the West Coast. It was offered in a range of case colors including ivory white, brown, red, and blue, with this example finished in the classic ivory that has become the most recognizable and sought after of the group.
Packard-Bell's "Stationized" dials, which marked tuning positions with the call letters of local broadcasting stations rather than frequency numbers alone, were a distinctive regional touch that the company used across most of its radios until it began selling nationally in 1950. It gives sets like this one a genuine sense of time and place, tuned not just to a number on a scale but to the specific stations a listener in California or the Pacific Northwest would have actually known by name.
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 Packard-Bell set, housed in one of the more charming small tabletop cabinets of the late Art Deco period.
