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Cossor Continued

Shown below is the Cossor 464AC from 1946. This set is a 4 valve plus rectifier superhet receiver, built into a black bakelite cabinet costing £20 incl pt. The cabinet is quite nice looking, with plenty of curves. The top of the set has a semicircular ridge, and as can be seen the bars covering the speaker cloth are also arched. A celluloid plastic cover, allowing curves to be introduced in that area too, provides protection of the tuning scale. However, the celluloid cover is prone to damage and is often cracked or even missing. The passage of time usually means it has yellowed somewhat, but in fact that rather “mellows” the set instead of detracting from it. The receiver was also available sprayed in other colours, but if examining one of the coloured examples check that it isn’t a recent spray job (often done to hide repaired bakelite cabinets). One means of telling is that the knobs of the sprayed sets are usually white as opposed to black. There is a design weakness in this receiver worth watching out for. There are two knobs to the right of the tuning scale mounted concentrically. The outer knob is the tuning control, whilst the inner knob is the wavechange control. The wavechange control is more often than not missing, it seems prone to breakage as it is rectangular and thus the bakelite is thin in places, and the clunk of the wavechange switch causes the knob to fracture. Because of its specialised shape, it is not easy to disguise the missing knob with a knob scavenged from another set. The set shown is completely original inside, but needs major work to bring back into service. A fault in the power supply has burned out the paxolin base of the rectifier, causing a dead short. This seems eventually to have burnt out the mains transformer and rectifier. Fortunately I have a spare chassis, so a major transplant will take place sometime in the future! I'll post a better picture of the chassis when its out of the cabinet for the repair. Covering three wavebands, it also included a miniature frame aerial toward the rear of the chassis. Valve line-up is OM10, OM6, OM4, 6V6G, 6X5G.

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