Seventy-five years ago, this young man was safe listening to the radio unattended, thanks to the “safety radio”. As we’ve reported previously, most radios of that era had a “hot chassis“. One side of the line cord was connected to the metal chassis. The connection did go through a capacitor, but those were known to short out. Depending on which way the cord was plugged in, the result could be a 120 volt shock if you touched any metal on the radio and a grounded object. In this safety radio, the set was safely housed in a one-piece plastic cabinet. The description notes that there is ample provision for required cooling, and there was a handle for convenient portability.

I would be curious to know whether there are any screws on the bottom. And if one of the knobs fall off, the volume and tuning controls are probably made of metal and attached directly to the chassis. The magazine, July 1948 Popular Mechanics, doesn’t name the manufacturer or the model. Maybe one of our readers could identify it.