Here is a real piece of transformation from ugly to beautiful.
I purchased this at my favourite cross-border Walden Ave. flea market in Buffalo back in 2003 for a mere $2. Well, certainly some might have called this a basket case, but I knew I could bring it back to life. I worked on this on and off from 2004 to 2005, for a total of 19 hours.
This is a Crosley 56TJ “second production”. It used both octal and miniature tubes in its lineup, probably due to post war shortages of certain tube types.

Every once in a while we will find “things” inside a radio. This one had a clothes pin, and evidence of a rodent’s nest.
Besides requiring 3 tubes and many other assorted components which were bad or missing, it is seen the speaker was also done for—chewed by the critters. It was replaced. I suppose I could have created a piece of the missing cone, but I wasn’t doing that sort of thing back then. I do now.
The cabinet was completely stripped of old finish, loose veneer glued back and re-finished.

The tuning unit is a relatively unusual permeability coil type, (except for automobile radios) rather than a variable capacitor.
The restoration was certainly a labour of love seeing the amount of time spent-but still well worth it in my mind.