Yeah they made some compact models like TK1 but couldn't resist to put a Reel to Reel cassette in this one, the big clear window and the traditional Grundig sign were begging for resemblance with the older r to r Grundig tape recorders that still can be found easily as at one point it was the largest manufacturer in the world in this segment , anyway I thought it was fun !
I had no idea they were that big of a player with R2R, over here Sony, Teac and Akai's can be found all day long, never seen a Grundig up close. I think I have a Grundig Yacht Boy Multiband and a larger multi-band but I did a lot of searching to find those.
Probably there were distribution reasons , Grundig dominated European market while in USA there was Wollensak Ampex and other domestic brands. Sony in the 60s (and generally Japanese brands) with transistorised machines began to change the rules of the game for both markets.
Here is its Father If you want one there is one for sale in the USA https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/358526098388 Not really the type of reel to reel I would associate with Grundig though. There are dozens on eBay.co.uk, mainly of styles similar to this. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/188137934000 Back when (like with 1980s computers) "Portable" had a slightly different meaning. The use cases were different as well. In the late 1960s we had a Grundig reel to reel at school for language learning. "Sound Photographs" were being suggested by manufacturers and magazines. My Aunt had some kind of Reel to Reel recorder (before cassettes existed) and told me how she had taken it to the zoo to take "Sound Photographs" of the animals there. I guess Super 8 with sound (surprisingly not introduced until 1973) killed off that idea. What I am wondering is if Grundig ever embraced Reel to Reel as part of a Stereo HiFi set up ? Those were what really started to get the Japanese noticed. edit I have found a couple of pictures but guess that by that point the market was being dominated by Japanese companies like Akai.
If there is a Grundig r to r that I would like to toy around is this one I guess you could still call it small and portable for what it is And an ad with other members of its family for size comparison
We had a Shibaden Reel to Reel video recorder at secondary school. Only the school Librarian was allowed to touch it. He had a monitor showing its output in his Librarians Booth, so when, after half an hours playback the picture started to break up he could run upstairs and, while the machine was still running, blast Aerosol air duster into strategic places to get the picture back to normal. The lid on the reel to reel VTR looks like a good idea. Thirty years ago we had a retired Army helicopter pilot in the local Ham radio club. He said that he had been involved in testing Video Surveillance from helicopters. In fact the only information on the internet I have ever found about him was a report from the early 1970s giving details of those tests. The reason I mention the lid is that he said on one flight he did a couple of high-g maneuvers which caused the guy in the back operating the camera and reel to reel VTR to throw up (be sick) into it
I couldn't imagine that a lid could offer protection for such a reason but oddly enough makes sense! Schools colleges etc found these vtrs understandably very useful and probably was their strong selling point. Another pioneering use of vtrs was in 1962 for inflight movies by American Airlines and Pan Am with Sony PV-100 , if I recall correctly they set up a specialized company just for that , in the photo the unit far left.
