Antique radio collecting is becoming more popular on Ebay and has been pushing up the value and sold prices of these old time beauties.

Nothing is worse than spending a couple of hundred dollars along with moderate shipping costs only to receive your radio in pieces. Most mishaps occur when the radio is poorly prepared and packed by the seller in combination with the enormous blunt force trama it receives by the shipper during each handling station it goes through on its way from the seller to the buyer.

There is very little we can do we how it is handled by the shipper (UPS, USPS, DHL, FedEx, etc.) but the seller can do a few very simple things to protect that valuable radio from being damaged during shipment.

The following guide mostly refers to the larger wood tombstone radios from the 1930's but can be applied to some other radios as well.

1. Make sure the following major components are securely fastened.

        a.  Speaker - Usually has 4 nuts that attaches it to the front grille of the radio.

Reason - During shipping the vibration of being in a truck or airplane will cause the nuts to loosen more if they were not tight to begin with. If they get loose to a point where the speaker is free to move, the speakers heavy mass will start behaving like a slide hammer with each shift of the box. It will tear out the grille or worse be completely loose in the cabinet destroying itself and other components like tubes, hard to replace glass or plastic dials and cabinet.

       b. Chassis - Usually has 3 to 4 screws on the bottom side of the cabinet.

Reason- Just as with the speaker, it is a heavier mass that will destroy the radio from inside/out if it is loose.  A minimum of 2 screws at opposite diagonal locations on the chassis is required to be tight. NEVER ship it unsecured without screws, if you can not aquire the screws to fasten the chassis it is necessary to ship it separately (more cost but safe, or go to the hardware store and purchase some screws). As a buyer I would pay extra for this but this thought may not be share by all. Do NOT try to ship it loose with a bunch of crumpled newspaper inside the cabinet in hopes this will keep a loose chassis from moving, it flatly doesn't work and usually causes more problems like pressing up against the speaker cone from the backside ripping it.

       c. Knobs - Make sure they are secure and not loose, baggy the loose ones and tape it securely inside the cabinet.

       d. Check condition of the cabinet.

Reason - If the glue joints are no longer reliable the cabinet will fall apart and/or destroy veneer work, etc. during shipping. This one is real tricky. I DO NOT recommend or suggest any quick glueing fix by the seller but if it is a basket case you may want to ask the buyer if they will be willing to pay for shipping it separately from the internal components. (A basket case is where a lot of delamination has occurs with the plywood layers, if this has occured the structural strength has been compromised 10 fold and the radio will be destroyed even with the above precautions.)

Loose veneer should be taped along the edge where it is loose to keep it from breaking off and having the buyer look for it in the packing material or worse yet gets lost through a crack in the shipping box.

        e. Tubes - Are they tight in the socket?

Reason - If loose they will fly and break, you may want to wrap it in bubble wrap. I might get disagreements but I have found most of the time tubes are intact and in the sockets when the radio arrives when they are tight in the socket.  If you are able to easily grab and pull out a tube with minimal ease, then protect it in bubble wrap (big bubble) and put it in a baggy or separate box inside the main shipping box.

2. Packing the radio into the box. These suggestion are based on what I seen work best from sellers on over the 80+ radios I have bought over Ebay.

         a. Wrap it tightly in plastic wrap.

This does 2 things, it keeps the unnoticed loose veneer pieces in place and if you have cabinet components that need glueing it will tend to hold them in place during shipping. I reccommend 2-3 layers tightly wrapped and held in place with 2 inch shipping tape.

         b. Wrap it again with 2 -3 layers of bubble wrap all dimensions (use only Large 1" Bubble Wrap)

Tightly wrap it and use 2" cellophane shipping tape wraped around the width and length of the radio.

         c. Place in a strudy cardboard box.

Make sure the bubble wrapped radio does not have sliding room in the box, when packed the radio should not have any room to move to keep it from acting like a battering ram during shipping.

I would only recommend using styrofoam peanuts if you double box the radio. Styrofoam peanuts tends to compress and looses its ability to absorb the forces impacting the tombstone during shipping. It will allow the radio to slide more loosely in the box over time causing damage to the radio (if not double boxed).

3. Write "Fragile" on the box.

Believe it of not, the carrier does treat it more special. I have had 5-6 radios delivered with these words of caution written on the box and they arrived safely although they were not packed all that great.

Okay, as a seller this adds about $10 of handling material to your product but as a buyer I would be more than happy to pay knowing that the downside is having to throw away a radio you just payed $200 due to it being poorly packed.

Hope this helps both seller and buyer!