Apparently, the big fad in radio 90 years ago was radios that didn’t look like radios. These examples come from the August 1927 issue of Popular Mechanics. The first, shown above, looks like a book, but it’s actually a crystal set. According to the magazine, the set had recently come on the market and was nicely constructed. It had enough space inside to accommodate the headphones, antenna, and ground lead. It was said to pull in stations within a radius of 20-30 miles.

The second example was a homemade six-tube set built in to a miniature baby grand piano. The speaker cone was mounted at the rear on the sounding board.