I wont be seeing my friend until wednesday so I'll have to check with him then about a picture of the cabinet.

OK so here's a picture of my friend's radio cabinet.

Hopefully you or someone on here can identify the maker of this radio (which has long since been gutted).

Although it's similar to '28 Radiola cabinets, I couldn't find an exact match. Many other companies followed suit with that basic style. I will need to look further into my 1920's achieves to possibly find it. I'll do that soon. It also might be a custom cabinet. That was popular back then. A slew of cabinet shops in the '20's/early '30's would offer various high/low-boy designs in which you could install your radio chassis. They were often more unique than the radio companies offerings.

Okay, I went through everything I had and couldn't find that cabinet design. Again, it's similar to Radiola cabinets, but there's no match. I'm going to say it is a custom cabinet, but I'll let you know if I come up with anything else.
The bottom line is that type of set, from that era, even if it was complete, would be of very moderate value. Collectors typically shun large legged consoles. Being it's just an empty cabinet, it has very little value to radio collectors. Finding someone who has a chassis for it is nil. It's value is as an antique cabinet for repurposing, which would not be very much.

OK thanks for letting me know.

I wonder if it was another brand that was similar to or a copycat of Radiola like Atwater Kent, Stromberg Carlson, or Philco? I know those companies made radios in highboy/lowboy style cabinets like that during that time period as well.

Maybe we could look into those leads?

Radiola was an RCA product and RCA was born the radio pattent holding company/ bastard child of GE and Westinghouse...from the beginning up to WWII there were a number of RCA products that got sold as GE and or Westinghouse products with only a moderate cabinet restyle to mask it... I'd look at GE and Westinghouse first as they were more copy cats than anyone you mentioned. Philco hated RCA so much they used Loctal tubes (which were a Sylvania pattent IIRC) instead of Octals which were an RCA pattent... Philco was no copy cat of RCA...Heck in that era it was the other way around. RCA was forced to copy the successful concept of the budget Philco 80 cathedral radio.

I love '30's and early '40's radios but RCA and it's "partners" are way low on my list. RCA's only claim to fame was the first AC and superhet radios. Otherwise they had nothing to offer in radio innovation or styling and were almost always overpriced. My Zeniths and Philcos are head and shoulders above the RCA group in that price range. Even a Sears outperformed them! Golden throat indeed!

I have to agree with the exception of 1938. That line of classic John Vassos designed art-deco sets are awesome in both looks and performance. Before and after I find them rather dull with the exception of the rare Vassos chrome bar-cradled sets.