A nice, mostly non-descript, medium-sized table radio from 1949, according to Radiomuseum.. There are four cabinets for this radio: the 1525A is "walnut" aka brown, the 1531A is red, and the TBD is something else. My 1526A is "ivory."

Outside of that it's just a typical All-American Five, using a 12-volt minis:

12BE6 Converter
12BD6 IF amp
12AT6 2nd detector,AVC AF
50C5 audio power out
35W4 rectifier

The dial lamp, thankfully, is an easy-to-find #47.

The cabinet is filthy but no cracks, chips or pieces broken off. Got both Dagmar knobs—that's a pleasant surprise.

Electrically, it's got some hum—it's right on the borderline of whether I want to replace the filters or not. If so I'll do it last. Reception was soft so I started playing with the IFs, which is taking some doing. The machine uses the type of IF xfrms where you have to attack the slugs from both above and below the chassis. Above chassis is simple; below-chassis means I have to go in with a long-enough tool and not touch anything and create a short. As I type this, I'm either going to have to re-dress a couple of bare leads out of the way, or I'll need a tool that's insulated and has the slot-screwdriver end that's small enough and strong enough to turn the slug.

The real problem with this thing is that the dial glass (plastic) got cooked and distorted. You can't read it, and it's warped enough that it's chafing the dial pointer and string and keeping it from tuning. On a more popular model (like my RCA 56X) I could get one from Radio Daze. This one, I suspect, is going to require a donor set. Or I'll have to figure out some way to fake a replacement.

I haven't been able to find service docs on it. Neither Rider nor Beitman have it under this model number. I suppose there's another that's equivalent, but haven't found it yet. Radiomuseum does have the photo and stats.

Current status: needs a dial glass; cabinet needs cleaning; some hum, will need filter caps replaced; needs alignment, probable replacement of remaining paper caps..