Bought a pair off CL tonight.  S/Ns are 3J457 & 3J458, which I assume is 1971.  On the tag it says model H700, then HDB12.  My main question is about the crazy finish, it's glued on slats of cedar.  Is it safe to assume these speakers were Raw and then someone put these cedar boards on it (5/16" x 1-1/4")?  The plywood looks like 5-ply plywood painted black, thought it should be 6-ply.  All drivers and Xover are PWK, and have right model numbers on the drivers.front grille is not removeable, stapled to front and covered with the cedar.

Yup, 1971. 

Cedar was not from the factory. 

If you like the cedar, keep it.  If you want something different, consider finding a pair of used cabinets and then transfer the components into them. 

Greg

1. Thanks for the quick reply.  The cabinets under the cedar are painted black and solid as a rock, so perhaps I'll get some cherry or mahogany veneers at our local woodshop and finish them.  The plywood on the cabs is also stamped with the serial numbers and the dimensions are exact to the Klipsch specs, so I'm pretty certain they're legit original cabs.
2. On the tag it says HDB-12; can someone decode that?  Is it Heresy / D? / Black / 12" woofer?

Heresy, Decorator, Birch 12" woofer. 

thanks... birch is a no-brainer, but what does decorator mean? 

 The wood was unfinished at the factory to allow the end user to stain or finish them any way they wanted to.

 Never mind, you providing "decorator" actually provided me the needed term to do a proper search myself.

Your reply said HDB stood for Heresy Decorator Birch.  I found another post by "Malcolm" that said it's for Heresy Decorator Black and made with 1/2" fir plywood instead of Birch.  This seems to make the most sense as mine has 1/2" 5-ply plywood with exposed edges. 

 From Malcom's post:  There were also models like HDBR (Heresy decorator birch raw). Those were the ones with the exposed plywood edges and no recess for a grill. All of those mentioned so far that I have seen were built of 3/4" plywood, although some had 1/2" backs. There were also theater grade models built like my HDBs (Heresy decorator black) which were built of 1/2" fir plywood.

 So, looks like I have those theatre model Heresys.  I'll have to strip off all the crazy cedar, then decide whether to repaint black and leave as-is, or put on some high-end veneers.

 Thanks for the help!