Dawg, those old radios from the 40's and 50's were basically safe, despite the hot chassis design. The problem came when the kids would pull the knobs off and lose them, then everyone would have to use the metal shafts to adjust the volume or tuning. Also, all of them had metal screws on the bottom which attached the chassis into the cabinet, which if you touched, would be "live". As I recall, the connection between the main power and chassis wasn't a hard direct connection, but was though capacitors and/or resistors. I've got several old radios from the mid 40's up until the mid '60's (when solid state technology took over) and collect them whenever I can. My favorite is the Crosley that my dad and his roomate bought together when they went to college in 1945. Can you imagine nowadays two guys having to go together just to pay for an AM table radio?
