Sort of famous machine for its sound, 4-5 years ago there were quite a few lots with Bose on Yahoo JP and I was going to score one of the latest models, with a CD.
Wow, a very early boombox article, lot's of cool first generation boxes in this from 1977 where plastic was king and funky speaker grilss ruled.
I just posted this little mini in the B&B section, such a nice little radio, it looks like it came out in 1983. The JVC RC-S22
Sharp VZ-2000 Boombox Giveaway! I wonder if Gary Gailey still has it? That would be great if he was a member here.
whoops, I guess the young lady got it, she's probably a senior citizen now and it sits on her shelf with a doily in mint condition. I wonder what happened to the unnamed coke dealer?
This is officially the earliest I've seen "Boom Box" used, from Changing Times Magazine, June 1982 on Google Books. I don't think I posted this before, the threads are getting long and take awhile to get through.
Interesting! Thanks! "3 Axes" is the most expensive. Prices seem a bit high - are those in the US or maybe Canada back in the day?
Thank you - and prices for the US? 800$ for 777 - way too expensive. Some say it cost round 450$ but it was probably somewhere in Asia, in cheapest areas like Singapore or Hong Kong, I don't know.
In the US we have "list" price and "sell" price, the list price is somehow tied into the manufacturer's internal accounting, I think the government requires it. The reseller sets the "sell" price and for electronics in the 70's and 80's, big discounts were everywhere. Old commercials and ads always had a loud salesguy talking about the weekend's big sales with anywhere from 40-60% off. For a general guideline, I'd take $800/2 = $400 (resellers price). Add in bulk buy discounts or end of the year sales bonuses and the price drops more. I'm not sure if other countries do it the same and you may already know this. I haven't posted many sales ads, I'll try to find some for the 777 but $450 USD sounds spot on.
Thank you, mate! That explains it! And the real price of an M90, for instance, price you could actually buy it was somethere there as well - 400-500$?
In the UK there were strict rules about "sale" prices, i.e the goods had to be full price at some point. A colleague told the story of how he bought a wardrobe for £100, decided he wanted another one and was horrified to find they were now £200. Asking shop salesman why this was, the reply was "Don't worry sir. Come back in two weeks when we start the Easter sale. Everything will be 50% off and it will be back to £100. That was what actually happened too
We have those pricing laws as well, electronics stores got called out (and fined) for "bait and switch" where they have a JVC M90 for $200 USD but there's only one, then you can get an M70 for $450 because there's no more M90s and the M70 is 1/2 price. For the US I'd use 1/2 of list and a little more for the actual sell price. Some of the exotics like the 777 might even have been less if the store bought a pallet load a few years after the initial release.
The General Electric Line for 1983 including two microcassette boomboxes. Both of these boomboxes were made by Sharp and they are pretty robust. The Road Show Boombox with the TV/microcassette seemed to be a trend in 83 that didn't last long. Sharp, Sears, Toshiba and General Electric all had a version. From Electronics Servicing 1982, the full article is here. https://www.americanradiohistory.com/PF-Index.htm
The Music-Air MCR-770 from 1978, the first dual deck boombox? I posted an ad for this player in the brochure section, was this seen outside of Italy?
Here's some interesting equipment in Italy 1975, a lot of it is pretty 70's boring but some of it is pretty cool. I didn't know Sony had a multi-band reciever similar to the Zenith Transatlantic series, luckily they made much more modern version.
Sanyo MDC-1000 CD Minidisc and Cassette Boombox from 1995, Poptronics Magazine from americanradiohistory.com