The shape is the point. That high arch is a cathedral radio, the silhouette that sat on a shelf in nearly every American living room in the 1930s, back when a radio was furniture and the whole family pulled up chairs to face it. This one is a 2002 piece rather than the real thing, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. What it does instead is fill that arch with Coca-Cola.
The front panel does the work. A Coca-Cola script in white and rose, set into a mosaic of red with gold leading, and beneath it the contour bottle standing against green and cream. It is the visual language of a Tiffany lamp aimed at a soda logo, which ought to be far too much and somehow lands.
The cabinet is finished in a deep Coke red with black trim sweeping down each shoulder and a stepped black plinth underneath, all of it borrowed from the deco radio cabinets of the period. Three knobs, chrome and brass-gold. A dial reading AM at one end and FM at the other, which is the quiet giveaway that this was never a 1930s set. FM broadcasting did not arrive until the forties.
At twelve inches tall and just under eight wide it asks for very little room. A kitchen shelf, a bar cart, the corner of a desk, the top of a bookcase. Coca-Cola has licensed a great many things over the years, and the good ones borrow a real shape instead of inventing one. This borrows a very good shape.
Come see it in person at Pollyanna’s Antiques in downtown Mt. Clemens, open Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday from 10 to 4.