I have a shot at purchasing my first Catalin radio at an upcoming auction. This is one of my priorities as a new collector of antique radios. Any tips anyone can offer so that I can make an educated offer, and bid well. The radio is a Fada Model 1000 in Butterscotch, and from the limited photo I saw, appears in relatively good condition. I appreciate any guidance. Thanks much

Other colors are more costly. Blue being the most expensive. I bought a green one and polished it out to blue. Expect at least $200 to $500.

Thanks for the reply, must not be a popular topic. What do you use to polish Catalin? This will be my first if i get it. What color would butterscotch change to if it changes?

Its 4th of July for cryin out loud.... go outside and play !

.... uh, your radio will be an IVORY color if polished out. Its not easy to do, a polishing wheel with rouge is required and it can reveal tube heat burns if done. Generally the butterscotch (or even pumpkin colored) ones are left as found. The blue color ones are found as green and are usually polished back to blue, as they are very rare and most attractive that way.

Mark Oppat
www.oldradioparts.net

Thanks for the info. The wife just got out the crowbar to yank me out of my chair too. Time to celebrate Independence. I am off to the beer store for some brew and ice. Thanks again. I hope my next posting will include a picture of my new radio.

Actually if polished it will be alabaster in color. Sort of a cloudy off white. Having much less yellow than ivory. Some will argue that you should not remove the butterscotch and only hand polish enough to make it feel and look like glass. Any of the good automotive polishes will do the job. Cracks,wrong knobs or bezel drop the value.

Beer? What is wrong with you guys. Show some respect for your country. Try a bottle of fine Ohio wine.

At a garage sale I found 2: $17 and $15.

Take off the surface crud, grease and nicotine and leave it alone. Better yet don't buy it, too many bad apples out there.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Fada-bullet-mod ... 35bdeada9c

Note that Catalin has a tendency to shrink somewhat and also is very brittle. Handle and store very carefully. Someday all the Catalin may turn to dust or at the very minimum develop cracks. Not an appealing future for an expensive toy. Whatever you do, don't look at a Catalin radio as an "investment".

I worked on one RCA catalin about 20-25 years ago which had shrunk so much it was nearly impossible to get the chassis out of the case, and the edges of the chassis had to be ground off to get enough clearance to get it back in. I think it was about 1/4" that had to be taken off. Figuring that there had to be some clearance when it was new, that means it had shrunk at least 3/8" or more in just 50 years.

I believe that there were a number of reproductions of this radio as well. Make sure yours is the real deal. I think the butterscotch color is nice, and would just as soon leave it alone.

If you're buying at an auction you're likely getting the real deal at a fair price. There are some bad apples on Ebay, look at lots of sales and non-repeat catalin sellers before you estimate a value. If there are cracks the value can be 1/3 - 1/2 the Ebay market price even if the cracks are not immediately visible. Totally broken areas and missing pieces can reduce the value from 100's to 10's of dollars.

The chemical reaction took place in the first 25 years, any damage has already taken place. The shrinkage is no more, just discoloration continues. I'm passing on what my friend/customer, lifelong collector of catalin told me. I believe the self destruction is overplayed, aka aspestos.

I bought a Garod 6AU1 catalin set last year.
The "butterscothch " on the cabinet had spots on it, and with the least agressive polish they surface shined, but the spots remained.

As the cabinet was basically a rectangle, flat sided one, I decided to go all out and do the sanding thing. NO power tools at this point.

I used 220 to remove the yellowish oxidation, BLOCK WET SANDING all the way.
Now, Catalin is not all that soft. It took a while. Block sand in opne direction. Now to some 320 sanding the other direction. When all the 220 scratches are gone, use some 400, sanding in the other direction again.
Chaning direction will let you know that the surface is progressing to the next grit.

Did this all the way up to 1200 and Ultra FIne grit. There was almost a lgoss at this point.
No remaining scratches other than the 1200+.

Now the next part is tricky. I you have never used a real polishing wheel you may want to practice. NO Orbital junk, it will not work. Going as slow at the wheel will turn I used a 'first polishing material made for lacquer. There is a definiate pattern and angle you must use with a wheel.
Long story shorter, I got a good gloss, no sandscatching left other than the microscopic wheel grit marks.
Now move to a finer polish called a glaze. 3M finesse-It grey stuff made for foam pads.
Polish again, until the super gloss is present. It takes a while to cu the gloss, but well worth the time. I think it took about a weel on and off to do the cabinet.

If you don't have a real polishing wheel (no drill motors either, turns too fast) then it will take longer, but do it by hand. Yes.

I polished the handle by hand, the cabinet with the machine, and I did leave the grille and knobs the orange color. Those did not have any dark spots on them.
Upon finishing, I only saw a very slight tube burn darkening on top. No problem.

The underside, I masked off the label and polished only up to the molded long feet. So around the label area is the orange color.

If I bought another one, I would again decide if I'd color sand or not. If the surface was evenly colored, I'd polish only and leave it be. If it was badly spotted, I'd decide at that point.

The alabaster color is subtle, but in person you can see all the swirls and shades in the white. The orange, lightly polished parts add a good contrast to anotherwise all white cabinet. I like it.
The only thing I regret is I had to sand off the original decal. It was in bad shape anyway, and repros are available.
In 5 or less years, the cabinet will probably start turning back darker, but at least it will be even.

If you end up with a butterscotch, maroon, or tortoise catalin set don't polish away the existing color. Polishing won't make much difference in the appearance of a maroon or tortoise cabinet but as pointed out it will turn the butterscotch back to alabaster, which will lower the value of the set. Blue sets are so valuable that I would send it to someone like Paul Pontrello to have it professionally polished to bring back the blue color. If you're buying in person, take a very careful look for cracks or repair work. Shining a bright light from the inside will help make any flaws stand out. Personally I would rather buy an unrestored catalin set because it won't have been in the hands of the many crooks in the catalin radio biz. Buying a restored set on eBay is an invitation to get screwed unless you know what you're doing. There are some honest sellers out there, but plenty of crooks too.

Bob

Hi Bob,
I had thought about leaving the set alone, but I didn't pay all that much for it and it just didn't look right with the spots on it even after a light polishing.

If it were the blue or any other color, I'd probably would have left it alone.
I don't think the Garod is one of the higher priced sets either.

I forgoto to mention that even if a person had a set wetsanded, that could take off fine cabinet details and lines that need to be there. No feature lines to sand away on my cabinet.

Happy 4th

It is not true to say that all catalin radios will shrink and break. This one for instance has still the holes of the cabinet right in front of the holes of the chassis. The handle is moving freely just like the day it was made, the cardboard of the back nicely fits into the cabinet. There are many factors that influence the shrinking. Once in a while I remove the screws by hand in order to figure out whether there is some shrinking or not. It just does not move at all...

It had turned blue to green and I brought some blue back just by slightly hand polishing it with some Brasso. Blue-green is nice too and after all, color changing is part of this thing.

George

Tulip bulbs.

Sure, tulip bulbs, for those who do not understand you mean speculation, buble and crash... Right. I paid $120 for mine. Which is expensive for an old tube radio. I could have sold it but when I got it in my hands I thought that it was a nice and interesting object, coming from an interesting era. I prefered keeping it.

But then if you only consider the price of things you will never enjoy visiting a museum.

George