[Arran]

Peter;
I like Canadian General Electric sets, whilst the model numbers are often the same as their U.S General Electric counterparts most shared chassis with Canadian RCA-Victor models, but used different dials. What I particularly like about them is that the cabinets were often better quality, and more attractive then the U.S models, and sometimes more attractive then their Canadian RCA-Victor cousins. If you know where the Canadian province of Ontario is, there were a number of furniture and cabinet companies that supplied cabinets to the radio industry, such as that Deforest-Crosley your friend brought back with him, Grimes-Phonola/Electrohome had their own furniture factory in Kitchener (was called Berlin up until WW1 when they decided to name it after a British war criminal from the Boar War, who was blown up by the Kriegsmarine).
I'm not sure who supplied Canadian G.E with their cabinets, or Canadian RCA for that matter, or if they manufactured their own. RCA-Victor was based out of Montreal, Quebec, and there were also a number of furniture, and cabinet companies there. In 1934-35 General Electric sets, in the U.S and Canada, used identical chassis, not only to each other, but to RCA sets in the U.S (whom made them for G.E) and Victor brand sets in Canada, the main differences being the dials, round for RCA-Victor, square for G.E. However for 1935-36 Canadian G.E carried on using square dials whereas the U.S G.E models used a cylindrical shaped dial viewed through a slot shaped escutcheon.
One thing that many Canadian built radio cabinets used in that era was Australian walnut, also called Queensland walnut, the front pilasters of your friend's CGE A-87 likely used that. It has a similar colour to American black walnut, but the grain pattern is closer to a ribbon mahogany, with the stripes.
Regards
Arran