P.O.W. Radio?
 

This item is being sold by a reputable Suffolk auction house as "Possibly P.O.W. made".

Is that likely? Thought it would make an interesting topic for discussion.....

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

I would say possible though there is not really a way of proving it. Also it would need a longer aerial than what is attached.

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

I wonder whether any clues could be extracted from what is stencilled on the baseboard.

I also wonder whether a metal section of the prison architechture (such as a gutter) would have been used as an aerial - with the wire shown simply making the connection to it. After all, a long wire extending from a hut would be rather a giveaway!

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

The stencil is almost slap bang in the middle...Why? or coincidence?

The saw blade marks look authentic but the cross cut breakout on the right hand side of the board looks a bit fresh to me.

I'm assuming it's supposed to be WW2 era.

Lawrence.

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

The screws look too clean and undamaged.

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

I agree, everything is too clean and fresh. The other clues can be: the razor blade brand, and growth circles in the wood, so it can be dated. In my opinion 99.9% fake.

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

If you do a Google image search for "foxhole radio", you'll come up with dozens of similar improvised radios, using similar components.

The razor blade in this particular one looks as if it's been further oxidised to improve its semiconductor properties by holding it in a flame: the upper end of the blade has been heated beyond the temper colours, giving a matt grey colour, while the bottom end hasn't been heated to the same extent (it was probably held in pliers) and shows the temper blue.

It would have rusted by now had it been 70-odd years old, and the brass screws would have oxidised.

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

A short list of my further thoughts...

+ The wood could be genuine.

+ It has only one earpiece, apparently they (the makers) used wire from the other one for the coil and aerial.

- The coil seems to have far to many turns for MW. Let alone SW

- You can see the turns of the coil, headphone wire is very fine indeed. (Well any headphone that would work with a crystal set).

- No earth lead, any radio man then would have used one.

- All of it is too clean.

Sheer speculation (as I wasn't there). If I where making one in a POW camp with lots of time to spare it would be smaller, disguised and more robust (had to be stored away in a hurry).

I wonder if it works?

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

I'd agree - perfectly possible, but for the reasons stated - highly improbable.

Much more likely to be someone's attempt at building a minimalist radio based on a romantic but misguided notion of what POWs did (or rather didn't), do to keep in touch with the outside world. Probably not a deliberate attempt to pass off a fake as the genuine article, but just a bit of junk really, not worth tuppence. And what - within range of a German (less still Japanese) POW Camp would they manage to listen to? The same heavily censored propaganda (in German or Japenese), that the local populous would hear on their radios. Most of what they found out was from new POWs who brought them up to date on how the war was going.

It's true that a 'crystal' set using a blued razor blade as an alternative to a crystal is an interesting project and there's doubtless much fun to be had from experimenting to prove that such a radio can indeed be made - least ways, on the kitchen table in the safety of one's home - though not in POW Camp and even less so in a 'muddy foxhole' in a WW2 battlefield under a hail of enemy gunfire!

Claims about 'foxhole radios', which Americans seem particularly fond of, are urban myths which just don't stand close examination.

Such fanciful notions infer that soldiers pinned down in foxholes in across the battlefields of war-torn Europe had the time and inclination to fiddle around with razor blades, pencils, safety pins, cardboard tubes, silver paper, copper wire, drawing pins, bits of wood and the like, and just happened to have these items to hand, along with high resistance headphones or a crystal earpiece, to construct a working radio to enable them to keep up with news broadcasts. Battlefields did rather tend to be a tad noisy too, and guys tend not to linger around too long in one place.

A tour of any of the many battlefields of Europe would soon dispel the myth of the 'foxhole radio'.

The 'Battle of the Bulge' would be a good place to start, or Anzio, Monte Casino, Caen, Arnhem and so on. Really, to suggest that they had time on their hands to faff around with bits of wire and razor blades is an insult to those young guys - many not old enough to vote or buy a drink in a bar - who fought and died and whose graves in their hundreds of thousands are evident in almost every village and town. It shows complete ignorance of what they were up against.

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

That seems to have been made from the constructional details and drawings in a book I borrowed from the Childrens' section of our local library in West Lancs in the early 60's. It was described as a "Foxhole Radio" and was one of a number of scientific projects for schoolboys. Although I can't remember the name of the book, the relevant chapter has since appeared on the internet with various attributions and there must have been a lot of those crystal sets around.

I got mine to work by clipping the aerial terminal to the metal dial of our telephone (we had a long overhead drop wire), and I used a crystal earpiece.

At the time I wondered what a Foxhole was, it must have been an American book.

Maybe the person who wrote the auction description works as an Estate Agent (or should I say, Realtor)...

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

My first thoughts echo those already offered- brass screws utterly untarnished, stencil 'just happens' to be right in the centre of the wood. A bit naughty of the auction house to even suggest it might be POW made- and it's arguably a bit disrespectful.

The mistakes (if you can call them that) and hints are so obvious that i think the manufacturer did them deliberately, with the intention of making it an obvious later piece using early components. He or she can hold their head high!

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

Well the estimate is £120-150!

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

That's a British earpiece so if it is a PoW radio then it is a German PoW!

gmb

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

Yes, looks like DLR, possibly number 5 type.

Lawrence.

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

Someone will buy it, no doubt , although it looks brand new to me.
'Possibly' is a slippery-enough get-out.
EBay had problems a year or so ago with people describing things as 'vintage style ' , meaning pretty much any trash post -1980. They have outlawed the term now.

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

They haven't, unfortunately. Type in "vintage style" and there are literally dozens of items with that description.

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

The phrase "caveat emptor" comes to mind.

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

POW - piece of wood?

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

Maybe it's a joke: Pretty Obviously Worthless?! :laugh1:

Re: P.O.W. Radio?
 

Maybe it's a joke: Pretty Obviously Worthless?!