The AKA thread seems to be on the old forum http://www.stereo2go.com/topic/index.php?content_oid=450115248648311787&board_oid=193392314111653326 so it is time to restart one. Looking at Prinzsound 8 track players such as the SM8, an AKA of the famous Weltron 2001, which were well over what I would would pay. I spotted an AKA of the Amerex AC107, which was my first cassette recorder, my birthday present back in 1976. After it had been relisted a couple of times, I bid £10 and as the only bidder won it. The only difference is the lack of woodgrain (and it looks as if a plate has fallen from the cassette door). Neither works, but if a wire drops off one during restoration at least I will be able to look where it came from. An interesting observation is that the battery lid sponge in both units is a good as new. Proof that it was possible to make foam rubber that doesn't disintegrate after 45 years. Feel free to add any AKAs you know of to the thread.
Currently have 332 brands listed on WikiBoombox, and I discover a new one almost every week. Of them, I have identified only about 60 that were legitimate independent manufacturers. The rest were just sub-brands (like Toshiba's Aurex, Mitsubishi's Diatone, Panasonic's Quasar), or retailer brands like Saisho, Ferguson, Realistic, Universum, which were not the name of the actual manufacturer.
There is actually a third category which Ferguson fell into, which was when an established manufacturer suddenly wanted to cash in on the booming market for Boomboxes or Personal Stereos. At that point they were still a major manufacturer of TVs and had made things like transistor radios, https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1304442389933617 Whether they had ever made a Cassette Recorder I don't know but suspect not. Easier to buy them in from a company like JVC, who they had a shareholding in than to set of for manufacturing them themselves. All their VCRs were JVC but with different front panels. Other companies like Binatone never made anything themselves, simply acting as an import agent and then selling their products on to a wide variety of shops. In Alan Sugar (of Amstrad fame) autobiography he explained that if you could get your own brand name put on equipment (like Binatone) it gave you far more control over prices than something available from multiple sources. Back in the very early days of Amstrad they got a contract from Binatone retuning a whole shipment of radios that had accidentally been bought with the Japanese FM band.
You're right, some brands like Ferguson, Bush, Zenith, SABA, Thomson, and Curtis Mathes were legitimate Euro or American manufacturers in the 50s and 60s, but in the 70s they started outsourcing their radio production to Asian manufacturers. The Ferguson boomboxes of the 80s were merely re-styled versions of things I've seen with other names.
That Amerex model you had in the 70's Longman was a very good machine & for a basic mono machine it made stunning recordings! My schoolfriends dad had one & regular recordings of the top 20 & later 40 were made on one of these! Amerex was of course just a badge & the machine was a generic model hence the Prinzsound machine! As for Ferguson, remember that until at least 1980 Fergy radio cassettes were built by JVC with just a few subtle differences like a tone instead of bass & treble controls etc....... One of my favourite JVC made Fergy's was this very compact & beautifully made 3T14 TV/Radio/Cassette Recorder from 1980/1 I think! Found this boxed minty example last year for £15!
To continue this old thread, I recently posted a picture showing that in the late 80s JVC televisions sold in Europe were made by Ferguson. I haven't managed to discover how big a stake they had but Ferguson's parent company Thorn EMI (the EMI famous for the Beatles) had a share in JVC hence their strong support of VHS and their ill fated venture into VHD. Back to Amerex one thread on a different forum suggested they were a sub-division of Toshiba. They seemed to have disappeared by the 1980s though. On eBay Amerex 8 track decks seem to be far more common than cassette recorders.
There was a brand called UNISEF (probably a deliberate imitation of UNICEF) that sold boomboxes made in both Taiwan and Japan, but others say "Made in Ireland"
Wow, I could have drank a six-pack and not noticed the difference. It's funny they copied a name I don't really associate with anything but collecting money as a kid in a little orange box door to door.....
There used to be a factory called Reynolds Electronics in Shannon Industrial Estate in the 70's and 80's and they used to turn out plastic tat for the Irish and UK markets. I think Reynolds walkman and radio designs were branded to Unisef for the Irish and UK markets. Unisef was a Japanese company.
Just saw this Citizen AKA Goldstar (mines in the beer and boombox thread). I tend to associate "my" with Samsung's "mymy" I wonder if it has a special meaning in Korea? https://www.ebay.com/itm/166312668231?i
These are AKA's of The bbdb otherwise known as the boombox database compiled by tpr. This information is recorded on a DVD+r, of which both have a capacity of 8.5 GB. decentman4you2007@gmail.com Just send me an email and I'll send you one or the other course. I need your address.
