Beautiful Bauhaus Design German Telefunken Radio 1936 Model 686WKfr, with 8 Tubes, 3 Bands and Phono Input, Serviced and Working

In a Nutshell
A 1935 Telefunken? Are you kidding? Looks like a 1960 Braun by Hans Gugelot.
No, I am not kidding

Introduction:
The Telefunken Company was created in 1903 under the last German emperor Kaiser Wilhelm II as a joint venture between AEG (Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft) and S&H (Siemens and Halske). In 1923, Telefunken started building broadcast transmitters and receivers, and in 1928 came up with the first television sets. Telefunken also produced recording devices, records and of course vacuum tubes. AEG (German slogan: Aus Erfahrung Gut = from experience good) and Telefunken became household names in Germany and throughout Europe. Take the legendary triode AD1, that is said to be the best sounding tube of the world - for a matched pair with readings of more than 60 you will pay more than $1000 (more under techies below).
The cabinet of this radio, which had been used already for the 1935 precedessor model 586WLK, is obviously styled in the spirit of the Bauhaus (pict.s 38,39), Germany's most important and most avant-garde art and design school. The school had 3 famous architects as directors, founder Walter Gropius, Swiss Hannes Meyer and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, but had equally famous artists as teachers too, for example Lyonel Feininger, Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky. Although physically closed by the Nazis in 1933 its influence lived on after the war and even today, most explicitly in the form of the Hochschule für Gestaltung (HfG) in Ulm, Germany. One of its teachers Hans Gugelot in the 1950's started a collaboration with Dieter Rams, a fellow teacher at HfG and product designer for the Braun company, to form "Braun style" consumer products, their electric shavers and high-fidelity audio products being most famous. Take as an example the radio-phono combo SK4 (Schneewitchensarg = Snow White's coffin) of 1956 (pict. 40 top). I did not find an explicit reference as to who designed the Telefunken 586WLK and 686WK and its Braun 1937 copycat model 638W (pict.40 bottom) and others. It's Bauhaus, I bet, any help greatly appreciated.
Finally a word about the "fr" extension of the model name: the radio was produced for at least two different markets (pict.41), "fr" obviously standing for France.

For the techies only:
The Telefunken 686WK has two AD1's in push-pull configuration as main amplifier, driven by a AC2 triode. I bought the radio with these tubes replaced by two Telefunken AL1 pentodes, that do the job almost as well, but are much cheaper. You have the choice to either buy a working radio or a pair of AD1's to look at - both at the same time will cost you. You can however do it in steps - first buy my working radio and later exchange the AL1's against AD1's, if you find some. They are plug-compatible and require no rewiring, since pins a and g2 are connected (pict.33) already.

Additional information:
ref. 1.    http://www.jllacer.com/Euro_Radios/telefunken_686WKfr.htm
ref. 2.    http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/telefunken_super_686wk.html
ref. 3.    http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braun_%28Elektroger%C3%A4te%29
ref. 4.    http://www.hansgugelot.com/en/index_en.php
ref. 5.    http://www.radiodatabase.nl/toestellen/telefunken/686WK/686WK.htm

About my radio:
I bought the radio on eBay and immediately recognized it as the one that was expertly restored by Jorge Llacer (ref.1 above). I let the master himself explain and praise this radio and have nothing to add, except that I warmly share his assessment and enjoyed studying the radio and giving it a little make-up boost. The ownership history of the radio after the year 2000 is known and available on request (see also pict.34). The radio is shown also at the virtual radio museum (ref.2), the schematics is at ref.5.
I improved the suspension of the 3 aluminum bars, did some cosmetics to the cabinet, and added a power cord with contemporay bakelite plugs at both ends (pict.15). I treated all moving parts with contact spray, that's it. The radio plays loud and clear on all bands and immediately is an eye catcher in any room, partly due to its imposing front area of more than 2 square feet. Please e-mail me (Kris) for any questions, ich spreche Deutsch, je parle Français.

Here are the specifications:

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