King Of Rarity

Its existence was only evidenced by this photo of the Walkman Room at Sony headquarters .



For years I thought that it was only a prototype until a few years back when I saw it also in Sony's 30th Walkman Anniversary catalog :




However it is the first time I saw any other kind of information aside the above mentioned until now that one went for sale !

In case you're wondering ,no Sony WM F2 is not that rare, the silver one at least, it is the RED one you probably won't see another one anytime soon.

Starting price was at around 40 euros and was sold for over 700 euros , no wonder here.




Enjoy red anodized metal in large scale :

 

Rare indeed, these are gorgeous in red only ever seen a couple for sale over the last 20 years or so, and the amount this sold for was quite low considering the rarity. Here's one I was watching in 2015

 

Interesting, another one three years ago exactly , and this one fetched almost the same price, not bad for a little over one day auction.
So it seems the practically non extant red F2's market has stabilized prices. Thanks mrp32Dave, now we can have a photo with the distinct front red WM F2 view.

 

the photos from the famous Sony Walkman- room have been discussed quite a few times in the past - i think AO still doesn't sleep properly, knowing there's a blue WM-2 as well as a transparent one (not in the above pic, but there is one !).

 

Ahh yes autoreverser the transparent walkmans, actually I had a topic in the old forum asking if anyone had any info about them but (naturally) got no answer and I thought transparency would help solve mysteries.

Aside the blue and transparent WM2 in Walkman Room there is also a transparent WM F5.

(the old thread can be accessed here with my former user name Sotza)

 

Never seen any of these two transparent walkmans before.

Does the Sony walkman room still exist? or is it a permanent showroom?
I went to Sony store in Ginza, Tokyo 2 months ago but didn't see any cassette walkman showroom.

 

Here is a photo from an article of the online StereoSound magazine that was published on 2016 October 7 which is the latest I have find.



At the bottom left you can see that the transparent WM F5 is still there but the blue and the transparent WM2 as the silver and red WM F2 have disappeared !

It seems that Sony is undergoing a major project with their building but don't know exactly of what kind, nevertheless I think Walkman Room was never open to the public, maybe you can find more info here :
Sony's new building
In StereoSound magazine online if you follow the links you'll find almost every walkman ,discman etc that were displayed in the Walkman Room with detailed info on most of them and very good quality photos.

 

at the Sony-center in Berlin they used to have a little display/vitrine with several early cassette-units like WM-7, 10, DD-100 etc. it's been a few years that i was there - anybody in Berlin who can go there, have a look and maybe take a pic ?

 

@Boodokhan " .... at Shinagava station in Tokyo and head for the Konan exit." ,the photo below is from a book that I have from 1999.

It would be interesting to see if they have them still displayed.

 

That sounds interesting, I'm really curious...You can post it also here ,or a link, this is a rarity king friendly thread !

 

Took another look in walkman room and found one more version of WM II not seen before (at least by me). It has the inscription "Hokkaido" and looks white colored or pearl white ,if anyone has any info on this (or the walkman itself) please drop us a line.

 

The Japanese online StereoSound magazine has an extensive article about walkmans with lots of links with photos inside Walkman Room with descriptions for many of them ,actually the author asks for more information for other walkmans exhibited in Walkman Room.

Could be if ,say ,they had records sales as a celebration model, or because the "Hokkaido" fonts look special like from a logo of a company maybe it is a promotion model. If we find another "Hokkaido" something with the same fonts we can be more certain.

 

Hi,

There is at least one other white WM-2 existing (unfortunately without the hokkaido holder).
I found the white WM-2 at Yahoo in Japan.
This is a picture from the auction, I don't know if it is allowed to post it.

 

Good eye @Mystereo , difficult to find it in there and recognize it in that condition . At least we know it wasn't a one off , for the history somebody bought it for 50 euros.