Belmont 531

Belmont 531

1938

Bands: AM

Tube Lineup: 6A8, 6K7, 6Q7, 25L6, 25Z6

One of the most elegant radio cabinet designs, this Belmont 531 was marketed under the "Freshman Masterpiece" brand. The brand is not to be confused with the original Freshman Masterpiece produced by the Charles Freshman Company in the 1920s. The Charles Freshman Company had merged with other companies in the late 1920s and eventually succumbed to the Great Depression, but the "Freshman Masterpiece" brand continued to reused by other companies into the late 1930s.

Belmont has produced similar radios under other brands including Goodyear, Truetone, and Coronado. The radio design is similar to a standard AA5 AM superheterodyne enclosed in a nice cabinet that is symmetric from front to back and was offered in different cabinet colors including black or walnut bakelite as shown in this example, and also in ivory plaskon. The cabinet style was also used in other similar models such as the Belmont 602 with an airplane dial in place of the vertical slide rule dial and pushbuttons seen on the model 531.

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