I recently visited Herberton just inland of Cairns in Queensland Australia – and there is a wonderful tourist attraction –  a village back in the time of the old mining settlement of the town and among the many many attractions such as houses shops, school etc was a display of items of memorabilia of which  this one caught my eye, from the 50s or maybe slightly earlier. 

 A Hopalong Cassidy radio set  – so this actually may date back to the 40s. It was certainly an early marketing of the famous western star and the promotion of this radio by using his name. Quite clever stuff at the time no doubt.

I have since found out this information below :-

The Arvin Model 441-T or “Hopalong Cassidy” radio, originally priced at $16.95, was manufactured in 1950 using two styles of embossed, paper-backed, aluminum foil fronts. One “Hoppy” front shows his horse Topper rearing with both forelegs in the air, as shown in Figure 1. The other style, shown in Figure 2, has Topper with one foot on the ground and the other in the air. The Topper with two legs in the air version was the earliest design and was ordered by Arvin on February 22, 1950.