Hello what a great site. I am writing about my experiences working in a record shop in North America 1981 and I was hoping someone could help me keep things accurate. It specifically starts on July 11, 1981. Can anyone help me with what model and specs of the Walkman was out then? Did it come with batteries, was there a slogan...how popular were they? Stories...? Thank you. PRSCOUSER
It depends on whether you mean Sony Walkman (which is a trademark) or Personal Stereo Cassette Player. If you mean Sony Walkman, the most popular would have been the very first of its kind the TPS-L2. https://walkmancentral.com/products/tps-l2 The WM2, which was the first Walkman designed from a clean sheet was had just been launched in 1981 https://walkmancentral.com/products/wm-2 What you have to realise was that there was no new technology in the TPS-L2 itself, although the high quality but lightweight headphones were an innovation. The TPS-L2 was based on a Sony dictation type machine similar to one used on the Apollo missions in the 1960s. Until its launch noboady but Sony thought there would be market for a cassette player with no speaker. As soon as Sony showed there was a big market for personal stereos every other audio manufacturer started churning out similar machines, of varying quality, but much cheaper than a genuine Sony. Autoreverser has possibly the worlds largest collection of these machines http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/my-tps-l2-clones-westman-so-far.331/ Since you specifically ask about the USA, this is the one Montgomery Ward were offering in 1981. I'm sure they chose the model to reflect the type of person who they thought might like a personal stereo.
Montgomery Wards, Longman.....Very similar to Sears but Sears was just a touch better. Welcome PRSCROUSER, great project your working on maybe we can fill in some of the details. Personally I don't remember much about the first Walkmans, boomboxes and even mono tape decks were much more popular. Having a somewhat large player and headphones on your head screamed geek back then. With the small headphones and stereo playback, the Walkman broke a lot of barriers to make the players popular. I think the college kids embraced the units more than anyone else, at least in my town. Then the technology filtered down to us skate rats and the "active" sports crowd. As far as I know, none of the players came with batteries and they went through a ton of them, you had to have a good allowance to afford to run any of the portables. The record store guys hated boomboxes and Walkmans, just like MP3's were made fun of, tapes were getting similar abuse. Around 1979 things started turning but it was slow, cassettes were gaining favor, you could make a copy of your favorite album and not wear it out, you could give copies to your friends and you could use the tapes in your car and at the beach. The brands I remember were Sony, AIWA and Sanyo's, the Sanyo's were entry level, the Sony and AIWAs were still getting good money. If you haven't seen my threads, Walkman Archeaology and Newspaper Ads, look those up for the popular models back then. Hopefully that helps, feel free to ask more questions, a lot of the forum is in Europe but there's a few guys here in the Midwest.
Thank you for your information...I worked in a tiny record/stereo shop in Canada and it took ages for things to get to us...I am sure it would have been WM2 which lit up my world. The images seem right. I installed car stereos for the shop and it was the time when I would take out 8 tracks and install the wonderful cassette machines...Roadstar was a big back in the day! simple times..
I expect you already have one with a different name on it. Looking at the catalogue page I realised I have an AKA of the AM/FM radio below it, sold by one of the UKs largest camera and electronics retailers. You are right. There was a UK catalogue called Marshall Wards so I muddled the name. Oh dear look what you just made me find. https://www.vintagecatalogues.com/great-universal In my collection I have a scan of J C Penney 1980 but there are no personal stereos in it (just things like boomboxes and a home video outfit !). Similarly the first personal stereo to appear in Argos was the Binatone HipFi in 1981. I guess 1981 was the year when the number of models available and sales began to really take off.
Good to hear that you think we found the right one. It was interesting to hear about the car radios. 8 track went out of fashion in the UK in the mid 1970s. Back in 1981 I bought my first car (a MK1 Ford Escort) and then fitted an obscure brand version of the classic car radio with two knobs either side of of a tuning dial with six mechanical pushbuttons below it. That was quickly followed by a bottom of the range Motorola car cassette player, one of the ones where it starts playing when you insert a cassette, no rewind, and one button that served as fast forward (with a small push) and stop and eject at the same time (big push). I wired my speakers through a relay so that they would switch from the radio to the tape when you started playing one. Later on I fitted car radio cassettes to three different young ladies cars and two more cars of mine. I've never been paid to do it though.
What great info everyone...I enjoyed discovering the guy/gal headphone jacks! One last question...North American retail price....? Thoughts?
You'll find some US Pricing in this thread.... http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/portable-cassette-newspaper-ads.4630/ For some, car stereos were an extension of their home stereos, but for most over here, car stereos were the main set-up and people put a ton of money into them. Some of the equipment is so nice looking and you had to have the full stack of amps, EQ, tape deck, tuner. Some of the cool units have been posted on here in the past, I've seen a lot of ads in my search for articles.
As a resident of the Chicagoland area, I hope you don't repeat this mistake... as Marshall Field's was our local Mark & Spencer's. And though it's been bought-out by Macy's, we view it with a reverence like that held by fans of Grace Bros. Although, I do see how it can get muddled... since the marque did disappear around the same time as Montgomery Wards. You just reminded me of two points in my life with car stereos: Around when I got my driver's license, the Boom-Car trend came into full-swing, and at my favorite cruisin' spot (Duke's on Harlem) there would be at least three well-finished cars with mega-buck systems that were thumpin' either Hip-Hop or the dance du jour of the day... and I couldn't stand it! Back at home, around this time, my dad (Asst. Scout Master for the local troop) had gotten loan of an old P.A. system from the local council office for an upcoming area camp-out that would involve multiple troops. One look at the 15"x 9" 2-way horns and I thought "What would it take to drive them?" Presenting my curiosity to my dad, he told me of how the man whom rebuilt the amplifier--whom he spoke with--said it only takes 20w each to "kick" the horns. I asked if it was okay to use the horns for a while, before the camp-out, then made a phone call to a friend with a 40w amp to spare, and immediately got to work installing it all with a cheap digital-tuner/auto-reverse head unit leftover from the swap in my brother's car. No more than $5 was invested into it (For Phono/RCA plugs) and with a mix tape in hand, my buddy & I set-off to the scene that night. I gotta tell ya': It's a big ego boost when you pull alongside a Stereo Shop's showpiece van, built with a wall of 10" sub-woofers & seven 350w amps in the back that's bangin'-away, and just crank-up a totally cobbled-up system that drowns-out his so well that he nods & gives a
Here's another thread with some pricing and dates http://stereo2go.com/forums/threads/the-first-walkman-ads.4479/
