"Beetle Plastic" is one of the loosely tossed around adjectives given to radios with mottled cabinets.
Generally, the cabinet option originally offered as "Onyx", a marbled urea plastic, are now catagorized as "Beetle".
Some might argue some of these shouldn't be labled as beetle, and could be marbled bakelite or...?
There were hundreds of different plastic industry recipes in the 1930s and '40s with similar characteristics.
See the Radio Plastics Explained page for more info.
(Click on the thumbnails below for more info and a larger photo)
Beetle is a term used by collectors for plaskon cabinets that are mottled or marbled
with green, browns, blues, oranges and blacks usually with a white cabinet base.
West coast radio makers' beetle radios were predominantly streaked with yellows and reds,
as found with Gilfillan, Packard Bell and the Remler Norco 158 seen in the gallery.
The marbling makes each example unique.
These cabinets were commonly listed as the "onyx" option in early radio advertisements,
and cost a few dollars more than their 'walnut' and 'ivory' cousins.
"Beetle" and "Beetleware" plastics are actually trade names used by the American Cyanamid Co., NY, NY for urea formaldehyde moldings.
Beetleware is said to have originated in Great Britain, where colorful speckled "Beetleware" dishware is often found,
perhaps the origination of the term now used to describe these radios.
Early plastic ads are confusing showing the same clock in both Plaskon and Beetle ads as seen below,
and with Beetle ads showing solid colors which would be described as "plaskon" in radio collecting.
Beetle and Plaskon are only two tradenames of the many urea molded plastics, just different manufacturers,
some adding colored speckling or marbling that are now described as "beetle".
Beetle radios commonly developed stress lines or cracks that tend to follow marbling lines,
or appear on the surface near the hot rectifier tube.
It is rare to find a beetle radio without any stress lines.
The 1931 Kadette model H is a very early example of a "beetle" radio cabinet.
Strangely, the clock in the Beetle ad below is the same clock shown in the following Plaskon ad.
Admiral 398-6M
Play the radio above;
(Mobile users rotate device)
Click (tap) on the radio pushbuttons to tune in short OTR program excerpts,
click one of the 3 knobs or double-click the pushbutton to PAUSE / STOP the audio.
Button 1 - The Shadow intro
Button 2 - War of the Worlds
Button 3 - Lucky Strike ad
Button 4 - Benny Goodman
Play the radio above;
