You can now see one of the world’s greatest radio collections in person. 400 of the most collectable radios of the ‘30s, ‘40s & ‘50s are at the new Hugh & Jane Hunt Vintage Radio Gallery. It’s located in the Washington County Museum in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska.
Hugh and Jane Hunt cut the ribbon for the new wing of the museum on April 10th, 2026. The 1,200 square foot gallery is filled with custom-made cabinets and displays with rare and valuable radios.
We start our tour by going around an octagonal case filled with colorful Catalin Radios from the 1930s & 1940s (click to enlarge).
This cabinet alone has probably over $200,000 worth of extremely rare radios made of Catalin plastic. If you read the graphics, you learn that Catalin was a translucent liquid poured into molds with added coloring that was often swirled. The labor intensive process was only used from the mid ‘30s to mid ‘40s.
The large rectangular cabinets also hold Catalin radios.
There are over 150 Catalin radios at the center of the gallery, and then another 250 radios, and most of those are made of other early plastics like Bakelite and Plaskon.
In the above displays are some of the rarest and most valuable radios…the Air King Skyscraper models. Looking like the Deco buildings of the ‘30s, the colorful Skyscrapers were originally manufactured in 1933. Since plastic was a new medium, it attracted the world’s greatest designers. That’s why radios have such varied and eye-catching looks.
Everywhere you turn is another case of rare radios, including some examples from other countries.
This corner display features the very deco blue mirror and chrome Sparton radios from about 1936. The graphic notes that a large Sparton Nocturne floor radio like the one shown sold for $149,000 at an auction.
Unusual novelty radios are included…
…and so are wooden radios. The very rare Zenith Stratosphere floor model has its own clever living room display.
Besides Hugh & Jane Hunt, radio collector David O’Hanlon worked two years to pull together the project. He oversaw the cleaning, packing, moving, and displaying of every radio, plus wrote all the graphics.
Now it’s your turn. Any radio collector who can make it to the museum should plan a trip. Fort Collins is just north of Omaha, less than 15-minutes from the north edge of the city. The photos show what’s in the museum, but nothing replaces an up close look at the beauty of these rare radios.