Well after a bit of searching I can say it is definitely a rare one. That doesn't mean it is particularly desirable. Enjoy it for what it is - a means of playing Cassettes, CDs and the Radio. Also bear in mind that in twenty years time some bloke in his fifties might have an overwhelming desire to find the same stereo that he had in the noughties.
To be fair, we shouldn't pour scorn at an individual's particular taste, for this I apologise. There was a lot of plastic produced in the 90's by companies that really should have known better, Crown are no exception. These kind of 'boxes' were rarely bought by anyone other than well-meaning cash-strapped parents. It would be good to understand your hisotry regarding this poor Crown?
It actually made me wonder if Crown is a real make or just a company that sticks its name on AKAs Wikipedia has an entry https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_International but I'm not even sure if it is the same company. Being in the UK I often make the mistake of thinking that companies like Fisher, Crown, and Marantz are and always have been Japanese, as we never saw their any of their equipment made anywhere but the far east.
This Crown looks like the cheap radio/CD/cassette that were all the rage in the 90s. Sadly, some of them had pedigree brands such as Aiwa or -- case in point -- Crown, and even Sony and JVC have their skeletons in the closet with these units. They were misleading sold as mini-HiFi even if they didn't meet the DIN-Norm. Who knows, they may be all the rage one day. Right now they're not particularly popular, but they're pretty commonplace: I find them in scores at the fleamarket and I see them in many public places; hence I'd question Longman's suggestion that they're rare (I am pretty sure to have already seen this model more than once). Never the less, precisely because almost nobody on this site collects them, I doubt you'll easily get either information or a user's manual.
I was going by the results of Google and Bing searches where I didn't find anything. Search for the cheapest nastiest Sony, Panasonic or JVC from that era and you will have no problems finding instructions, service manuals, and pictures from Ebay. Hence my thought after my previous post as to whether Crown ever was an actual manufacturer.
Interstingly enough, according to Wikipedia, "A fire destroyed 60% of the Crown facility on Thanksgiving Day 1971 and rendered much of the remaining building severely damaged." 46 years ago as per today... Ans yes, Crown was a company that, like most if not all of them throughout the world, at some point had their boomboxes manufactured in Japan or the Far East.
I think a lot of these boxes looked like the namesake but in reality were knockoffs that owned the local trademark. All the Crowns I've ever seen are very similar to this one, with the exception of one that actually looked like a boombox but I left it at the garage sale thinking $6.00 USD was way too much for it. If you want to read about convoluted trademark, copyright and manufacturing, look into Marantz in the 80's. They had at least three different "licensed" distributors world-wide that could also manufacture what ever they wanted, giving us, Marantz, Unix, Standard and Superscope Units, all with a little "designed by Marantz" on the back plate. The Unix Name is especially cool, I think Marantz Japan ended up selling it after a very short time to one of the Silicone Valley Companies for big dollars. I've got one Marantz Unix and have seen just one other over the years. There a couple Unix Photos I've found, I think this is one of them, Arkay found the Marantz Turntable Version and there's a photo out there but you can't see Unix Branding on it either.
The CSC 850 is a very fine box, I agree with AO, and I agree with T-Ster that the 945 and 950 are also lovely. My favorites of the CSC series are the 970 (most elegant of them all) and the 980 (best sounding of them all), with the silver & blue 948 thrown in as the dark horse in the beauty contest (by the way, if anybody has one for trade or sale please contact me)
I will agree with most of you. What made me publish and ask for help is that it does not appear in searches. When I opened it I realized it was not an authentic CROWN radio. I am in the process of repairing the CD while the rest are already clean and functional after a little job. As a repairer I do not like to fly or leave something as cheap and as not authentic as it is. For the 5 euros I spent I made some fun to bring it back to operation. I thank everyone even with the British Homer for their answers. Otherwise we all do what we like
johniggle, check out Deech's Thread, he lives in Greece and he's finding stuff at the flea markets all the time that most of us drool over. A good portion of them look to need work and they'd be perfect for someone looking to repair units.
