Mighty Midget
G.E.R Mighty Midget. I had two of these little radios made by G.E.R Co. London W1. Miniature walnut veneer cased AC/DC mains medium wave TRF valve radio. I purchased them at auction in 2004. These sets use a barretter with edison screw base and the following valves: 12SK7 12J7 and 35L6. HT supply is provided by a half wave metal rectifier which appears to be Government Surplus since it has a ZA number. The loudspeakers are date stamped February 1949 and May 1948 respectively. The Daly capacitors are dated 3/49.
On both sets the mains filter capacitor had blown apart and the HT smoothing and cathode bias electrolytic capacitors had dried out and had to be replaced. I also replaced one 1.8 megohm resistor which had changed to 6 megohms and a couple of other 0.02 mFd bypass capacitors. (The capacitors have been inserted inside the original casings.) The most time consuming job was to dismantle the volume control on one set to repair the on/off switch. The loudspeaker cone on one set was torn and this was repaired using thin paper and a water based PVA glue. Both sets are now working well.
I had not been able to find out anything about these radios, until I came across the website of Jim Beacon who has one of these radios which has been modified to include a fixed resistor instead of the barretter and a silicon diode instead of the metal rectifier. His page (no longer available) also had a picture of an advert for this set dated 1946 and a link to yet another owner of one of the little sets.
How much is it worth?
I was really surprised to
see that one of the little radios was sold for �63 on Ebay in November
2014 and that it wasn't even in working order!
