The Collectors
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Friday 19 October 2007
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Over the past 10 years Peter Sheridan has collected 120 Art Deco radios. Although he says he’d like another 30, he admits he doesn’t have the room for any more.
The first radio Peter bought was a green Emerson Tombstone circa 1935. He says he fell in love with the colour, texture and design of it. While the style and quality of bakelite radio cabinets is still the main attraction for Peter, he also considers their rarity and how they fit into the Art Deco genre.
The favourite of his collection is a black ebony Colonial Globe radio from the 1930s. This uniquely designed radio has its electronics housed within the globe, while the dials are on the left and right sides and the speakers in the base.
Three German radios in Peter’s collection that share an interesting period in history include a Sonnenblume by Nora which were all but destroyed by the Nazis and replaced with Volksempfänger radios that would only tune into Nazi propaganda broadcasts. However the elite in German society in the mid-1930s also had access to Siemens radios.
Peter says the trick to getting his radios back to their original state is to have them restored by experts that specialise in bakelite radios. The process is labour intensive because it all has to be done by hand, and therefore expensive.
The one radio that still eludes Peter is a red-coloured Radiolette. He hopes one day to come across it and to be able to find room for it in his already large collection.
