Historic Finds: CONELRAD Marked Motorola Radio c. 1961, Civil Defense Warden Patch
Today I went to Dallas with some very close fiends of mine and came across a curiosity shop. Man oh man have I got some unexpected treasures to share.
I normally rummage through antique shops in search of Cuban Missile Crisis-to-Cold War Civil Defense items like this, but I never thought to look in a novelty shop. I am so very jazzed. I’ve been searching all over for treasures like the ones I got today.
Let’s start with the first one. My friends helped sniff this thing out.
This Motorola B2G solid state radio is characteristic of the late 1950s to early 60s. It even looks to be made of the then-popular Bakelite if I’m not mistaken.It has a functioning AM band while the FM band doesn’t seem to work.
What’s in a radio that has so much to do with Civil Defense you might ask? Take a closer look at the dial:
Note the encircled triangle icons on the 640 and 1240 kilocycle areas. These are standard issue CONELRAD markings that showed the listener where to tune the radio for emergency info. Many radios through the 50s-60s came fitted with these distinctive marks.
What’s even more special about this radio is when this particular model was issued. Upon further research, was made in 1961, just a year before the Cuban Missile Crisis. That, to me, makes this find a memorable one.
Next of course, the patch:
This is an authentic Civil Defense Warden patch, made to be worn as an armband. CD wardens were subdivided into specialized units back then, each with their own unique branded patch to mark their area of expertise.
This is the patch for the Air Raid Wardens. It was the first thing I saw when I opened a military badge drawer in the curiosity shop. I can’t even begin to describe how floored and excited I was when I found it at the top of the stack.
These two items now sit happily in my budding collection. While there’s still so much out there left to discover, these are incredible finds I’ll be proud of for a very long time.