The Ever Ready Sky Casket is a mid-1950s British battery portable valve radio, built to look like a small jewellery box or treasure chest rather than a conventional wireless.
It was made by Ever Ready Co. (GB) Ltd. in London (and later associated with their Poole works). Sources list it around 1955–1957. The export equivalent was the BEREC Harlequin.
It sat at the luxury end of Ever Ready’s “Sky” range: wooden case, cloth covering, gilt fittings, speaker hidden in the lid, ferrite-rod aerial inside. Original price was about £14 10s 10d to £15 plus purchase tax — a lot when average weekly wages were around £7 10s.
snellingsmuseum.co.uk
EverReady Sky Casket - Snellings Museum
Why it looks like a casket
Closed, it resembles a small jewellery case with a clasp and carry handle. Open the lid and the control panel appears: volume on the left, circular tuning scale in the centre, wavechange (Long / Off / Medium) on the right. The elliptical speaker is inverted and mounted in the lid so the set stays slim. A brass contact was wired so the radio would howl if you closed the lid while it was still switched on — a simple reminder not to flatten the expensive combined HT/LT battery.
Technical snapshot
| Valves | DK96, DF96, DAF96, DL96 (4-valve superhet) |
| IF | 470 kHz |
| Bands | Medium wave + Long wave |
| Power | Combined dry battery, 90 V HT / 1.5 V LT (Ever Ready B141) |
| Speaker | Low-profile inverted elliptical ~4 × 6 in, magnet in the cone |
| Size | ~9 × 6 × 6 in (229 × 152 × 152 mm) |
| Weight | ~2.3 kg |
| Output | ~0.5 W |
| Cabinet | Wood, covered, gilt hardware |
It uses a ferrite rod rather than a lid loop aerial. Unlike some related chassis it has no AGC on the IF amplifier (DF96).
Product Code: wBtiJh1
Brand: Ever Ready
Product Condition : Used
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