Don’t intend to start any trouble, if you’re happy with that paint scheme cool. But all the old prewar and everything up to the HRO-5T were black from the factory.  My power supply (CAN-20090) came with a AC power switch in the same location although it’s sideways and has a small brass plate for ON and OFF, also I have never seen a HRO without knob skirts, the later series National radios came without skirts. My CAN-49105 speaker panel has the square magnet and the National plate to coil transformer mounted to the back.

It’s a great radio for its age; remember reading about how several were used at the Navy radio intercept station in the Philippines before it fell in the first months of the war. Several were also in use on the Lexington that was lost at the battle of the Coral Sea.

It’s a revolutionary radio for when it was introduced in 1935 that exceeded anything on the market but ten or fifteen years later would think it would not be in high enough demand for a retrofit. Not to take away from the fact that in 1940 it was in high demand for British Y-Service stations intercept work, the HR0-5M and so appreciated by the Nazis that they produced an almost identical copy, the KST.

But then again, the government, Navy included, has done lots of other questionable things.

So, I cannot confirm my speculations.

Ray F/KA3EKH