I've never owned a Hammarlund. My first ham radio receiver was a Hallicrafters that I had to take the tubes out of, take to a TV shop with a tube tester, test all the tubes and replace the bad ones in order to get it to work. I was in high school at the time and I 'inherited' it from a family friend who was a ham and saw I had an interest in electronics.
That thing weighed a ton!
It was an old Hallicrafters SX-42 and I was really proud of myself that I got it working again and cleaned up to where it looked respectable again.