4 valves and a silicon bridge rectifier. Around this time Bell switched to transistors and there were no further valve-based Colts produced - this was the last model with the warm glow.
Generally easily spotted by the screen-printed metal badge riveted on the rear. Early examples have 5B67 screen-printed into the model space, and 30 V.A. in the power consumption space, but this was a step they obviously felt was just wasted time and money because it soon disappeared, with most sighted examples having no model code or power consumption on the badge at all.
The early dial glass was a black and gold design, with Bell at the bottom and KILOCYCLES at the top - although this term was an old one. The main dial glass sighted in this model was identical apart from the term at the top being replaced by KILO HERTZ. Late examples, just prior to the switch to solid state, had one of two near-identical dial designs - either with BELL or KHZ. at the top - and both with -COLT- in the bottom right corner . These are hardly ever seen and it must have been a very short run of dials. The variant with BELL at the top is one of only two examples of Colt dial where 'Bell' and Colt' appear on the dial together - the other example being the final Colt produced, the Solid State MKIII.
Bell Colts ran from 1951 through until 1980 - the longest running model of NZ built domestic radio. It saw many different engineering changes over the years, and the last few models dropped valves in favour of new transistor technology. There is considerable information on the main Colt page about this Kiwi icon.
The radios in this series are:
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