Maybe I'm dating myself Deech, Arkay was, at one time, the most prolific poster on S2G, and not one sentence likes or dislikes but long descriptions of his hunts in Hong Kong. He had two or three of every grail, all found hunting the local electronics thrift shops. Without photos he had many doubters but one member, maybe two, visited him and confirmed he did own a massive collection. He was highly active on at least two forums but one day.....gone..... "I should be pretty able to post pics without too much trouble now, but I'm running into another problem: I have so many boxes compared to the available storage space that most of them now are neatly wrapped in saran-wrap type plastic and lined up cheek-by-jowl on storage shelves, with some more stacked/wedged in front. Bugs me, because it's almost more like they are in one of those mausoleums with the ashes in urns all lined up in their cubicles. Makes it hard to get at more than one or two at a time to enjoy them, and if I have to unwrap and re-wrap each time, UGH! The wrappings are necessary to protect against oxidation in this climate, though. It's one reason why I'm seriously thinking of selling off most of the collection, probably within this year. Anyway, I'll eventually get some pics up. Sorry about it. Just to let you know I'm not dead, though, I'll admit that yesterday I scored two more rare Marantz. First off, I got another (PMS/)CRS-8000 --their top-of-the-line boombox. That makes two of them for me, to keep the three PMS-7000s (and one 6000 and some smaller ones) company. The other thing I got looks a lot like a PMS-7000 front (faceplate), but it is housed in a wooden case with gold striping along the front edges, and the speakers are also wood. [Actually, I think it's fake wood veneer.] I think the model # is CMS-300. It's probably about as rare as the 7000 or even the 8000. The dealer I got it from said she has only ever seen one before, about 5 years ago. I already have one, but it is missing the speakers. I got from a neighborhood business owner who used to have it in his shop. I saw one other a year or more ago, which an African exporter had already bought, and so I was unable to get it, and I know where there is one more, in mediocre shape and also without speakers. I've only ever seen one Online, which was on eBay a couple years back. That makes four I've seen firsthand, plus one "story" and one online. Given the amount of gear I see, this one is probably a rarity. Looks nice, too. Basically their boombox in home-stereo clothes, including nicer speaker boxes. Now that I have one nice, clean and complete one, I'll probably sell off the "extra" one that lacks speakers. Not sure if I'll sell the second CRS-8000, though. It's one of my favorite boxes, so it might be worth keeping a spare. Then again, it might bring decent money. Will have to live with it a while before deciding. Pics? Yeah, one day. Just not my first priority these days. Sorry. Eventually I'll get some up. I was talking with Henry Tai the other day about how cool it would be to get them ALL out, lined up and shoot a "giant" photo of all of them. Problem is I'd have to hire several people to help, would risk damage or loss, etc... The logistics just make it too impractical." Arkay - 2008
MisterX i surely didnt know him Personally i joined the forums late 2011 early 2012 and I am sure not from Hong Kong So i am here 4 years after him. Never seen a post of him when i joined. I wonder why? I dont know . Anyway he seemed like he knew his bboxes. He seems like Matsuzaki Zunichi from Japan to me !
The good news is you post photos so we can see the boxes, but like Arkay you guys seem to find a lot more in one weekend than I see all year and I wouldn't expect to see so many in Athens.
Mister X Yes it seems strange to get so many in a city like i live in but believe it or not back in the 80s Athens was a Mekka for those kind of Electronics. It was the perfect ground for those machines to thrive ! It was so cool to have a portable tape player even of the lowest quality. The Warm Climate helped a lot because if you have 7-8 months of Summer temperatures it goes that you are mostly out in nature or urban parks all the time. Tourism helped a lot , mentality of the people helped a lot because they are music lovers , The Nato bases with american soldiers helped too. The Political circumstances of this decade allowed the middle class to afford having an easy living, a well being and what this may include. (and it included having electronic goods) Its not hard to understand that nearly every household owned at least one radio like those we collect. A few years ago i ve met an old man who had an electronics store at Kannigos square. (Kaniggos square is like Tottenham Court road for our UK members) He showed me business cards from Japanese executives of PIONEER , SONY, TOSHIBA , SANYO And paper hand written invoices (with 80s dates) with a respectable amount electronic goods being shipped from Japan to his store with containers. He said to me stories of his business trips to Japan with sushi food and geishas and how well he was treated while being there in the Far East discussing about the goods he wanted to have and sell at his shop. Imagine that comes from only one store and at Kaniggos square there were about 20 back then. Let alone the whole city or different cities. I guess that pretty much explains the selection we might get here, in 2018. A plus is that the mentality of people is to throw away the old units and get more modern ones. At least the few or many that we collect , we benefit from this. We feed our passion on those terms.
Arkay used to mention that Hong Kong was similar, that everyone had a nice stereo system but they liked to upgrade a lot and old equipment was thrown out to the curb. He was always in competition with guys from Africa that were buying the equipment by the container and shipping it over there. If I made a serious day out of it I'd find maybe 5-10 boxes here but they'd be BOTL Sanyo's, Yorx's, etc. Someday I'll head over and have a few Mytho's and do a some shopping, I checked out the shops in Syntagma Square a few years ago and they did some cool old electronics, it would have been fun to spend more time looking
Mister X yesterday i visited his place for one more time just because we talked about it! The old mans store at Kaniggos square Just to get some pics (which was a very risky task) and have a little chat. I am saying it is risky and i will explain If you have seen KILL BILL vol.2 from 2004 and remember PAI MEI's character , one of the 5 Elders, a Master and how he treats his trainee Beatrix Kiddo you will understand the situation between me and him ! You have to show him respect to trust you and let you get pics , let you chat with him, you have to earn his trust . I know him from quite some years now and he was suspicious when i kindly told him i want to get some pics for people to see for a Global Forum. In the end i managed to get some. The First pics are from the 80s Mekka of electronics(Kaniggos Square) as i said in the previous post . You can clearly see the Urban Decay and how the Financial Crisis affected all those stores. It s quite sad but i will post them. This is a normal day within opening hours of the shops but all you see is ghost shops waiting to be rented. Now here are some pics of his archive with business cards with names of key people from the 70s-80s electronic industry from KOREA, TAIWAN, JAPAN you can even see a SuperTech executive from Holland : and here are invoices from that time with electronic goods shipped from Japan to Greece. Hope you did get an idea and everybody who sees this , i think its a serious archive. If you come again to Athens please contact me not to have Mythos because this beer is not so popular anymore and its not drinkable but some Alpha instead !
Thanks for sharing, cool stuff. I'd love to rent out the shops for a weekend, get some cool lighting and display my stuff. Some of those places might have display signs, it might be worth trying to score some of those, they go for big money over here.
...and the quest continues. Todays sightings . I felt so sorry for that German Loewe. Such an elegant and slim boombox. Season 7 Episode 2
Deech......I've been away too long! I never grow tired of seeing these tours but I do get insanely jealous looking at your pictures. I wish I had more time to drool over the pics and this site but my "chore list" has grown since we had a severe storm roll through a week ago that demolished a section of my fence and took down a 6 M Cedar tree on my property. Please know that I miss these tours and indeed this site but I will return and hopefully Deech's Tours will have some more eye candy! Take care
Geoff great to read your reply ! Hope everything is ok with the Tree and can be planted again Hmm joking aside i hope you are well buddy Thanks for the comment and please have in mind that you can also find this same topic at Boomboxery. I have opened the 7th season on both channels , you wont need PAY TV this year !!!
It's time for another Episode ! Hope you all like it ))) Not much this weekend but i grabbed that 1978 Sony CF-520. A ProtoBlaster Seen this strange Nippon with detachable speakers which were nowhere to be found. How would that boombox looked like its a mystery. The mono Panasonic RQ-548 Looked pretty exotic too with that dual cone speaker. That discolite fake Sony, the 3piece Hitachi beast and the Silver ST-858 were worth saving too but were left behind Hollie please take a look at that discolite fake sony at the last picture maybe it suits your needs. Season 7 Episode 3
Those 70's Sony's never get a lot of love but the build quality is first class. That Silver is a beast, I'd have a really hard time walking by it twice.
The frickin antennas are still intact....I'd grab it and send it to nickeccles Detail Service and have a nice huge box! The two vertical level meters and one vertical tuning meter have to look cool when it's cranking music. Seven piano keys on the tape deck, does the extra one really crank it up? I'm a sucker for the diagrams on the top, this one would have been a no-brainer....
The true reason i didnt get the Silver ST-858 is hiding at ''Stop Silver Time '' post at this topic : http://www.stereo2go.com/topic/inde...63&page_number=1&board_oid=193392314111653326 The antennas on this machine as you Mister X pointed out are not your usual ones they end up clicking on location with a ''ball'' shape finish. That said , its a very nice Boombox but i had to leave it behind . He was asking for 60 euros though. I m sure Nick would of loved it. you too Mr.X.
Of course you already have five of them, what was I thinking? The Silver Salesman was drowning in ouzo after sending the container full over there in the 80's, I never see anything like that and it's a pretty cool looking box. I always think these are going for a few Euros, I'd have to be in a good mood to splurge at 60 Euros.
Mr.X to be more precise 4 Silver ST-858 and 1 Silver ST-868 . 60 euros for a fully working one is not that bad and this was a clean example.
