Clocks & Music
1941 Airline 14WG-806A Mahogany Tube Radio Restored with Bluetooth
1941 Airline 14WG-806A Mahogany Tube Radio Restored with Bluetooth
This 1941 Airline Model 14WG-806A is a substantial mahogany tabletop set, sold by Montgomery Ward under its house Airline brand. The cabinet pairs a fluted, vertically slatted speaker grille on the left with a broad control panel on the right, where an amber dual-band AIRLINE dial sits above a row of pushbuttons flanked by Tone and Channel knobs, with Band Switch and Volume knobs set into the lower panel.
The 14WG-806A is an eight-tube superheterodyne set covering both the standard broadcast band and shortwave, tuned through a 6-inch electrodynamic speaker and a push-pull audio output stage that gives it more power than most single-ended radios of the period. A green tuning eye tube sits above the dial, narrowing to a thin sliver as a station is tuned in precisely, a feature that was considered a mark of a well-equipped set in the early 1940s.
Priced at $32.95 when new, the 14WG-806A sat solidly in the middle of Wards' Airline lineup, offering shortwave reception and push-pull audio at a price well below the flagship console models of the day. Its cabinet favors the warm figured mahogany and restrained banding common to catalog-brand radios of the early 1940s, built for presence on a shelf or sideboard rather than the sculptural extremes of some of Zenith's contemporary designs.
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, full tone of a push-pull vintage set, housed in one of the more handsome catalog-radio cabinets of its era.
