If anyone wants to dabble in tubes, like say cut one's teeth on a old tube AM radio, this is one definetely to avoid.

Philco used some sort of shit rubber wiring from 1939-42, it rots and dries brittle crumbling off the wires, exposing and shorting.

A co-worker points out the old radio in a visit at his place once. "It works." he says, and proceeds to plug it in. It buzzes and gets 920 KXLY.

I glance at the power cord checking out the radio. "Jesus Christ! How did you keep from getting electrocuted when you plugged that thing in?!"
Rotted down to the bare wire in spots......

So I offer to replace the power cord, clean the volume pot, check tubes.....do it over a weekend....no biggee.....shouldn't take long.

Took more than a weekend, the little bastard had the rubber wiring.

It ended up three quarters of a rebuild. Replaced what wiring I could, heat-shrinked over what I couldn't. Bad wax caps, and other bad coupling/decoupling caps from some work that Gomer Pyle pulled off in the 50's.
I had known good vintage coupling capacitors to use for replacement, some orange drops and a couple others. It saved the guy a few bucks.

The tubes tested like new on a emission tester.

The little radio is rather quiet now, and gets many AM stations. The speaker cone has seen it's better days, so it has some buzz itself. Too bad, because it has a nice tone. I may be able to damp it out somehow....

It's make you wonder what the first person who bought this radio new in 1940, would have thought if they knew that the radio would be working in 2007.
It was the co-workers grandparents radio, he's 50.
I'll post a pic of the radio in the wood enclosure when I get a chance.

It ain't hi-fi, but it's kinda cool....