70's 80's General electronics catalogs question

Discussion in 'Brochures, advertising, data & specs...' started by cleanpause, Sep 3, 2022.

  1. cleanpause

    cleanpause New Member

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    Hi All, I came across this image somewhere (maybe even here?) a while ago and was geeked about the list and short reviews of pocket cassette recorders here from what I believe is from Popular Science magazine in 1977

    Microcassette AD Popular Science 1977.png

    I was wondering if anyone has ideas of other publications from 70's and 80's that would have listed available models of various cassette and microcassette players/recorders?

    I'm thinking more along the lines of a general consumer electronics catalog. I did some searching online and on archive.org but possibly am using the wrong keywords and not coming up with great results. I thought I would ping the knowledgeable community here to politely ask for any clues on this fleeting quest.

    I've looked through some of the ones I remember when I was a kid growing up in Michigan here in USA and mostly the places my parents took me to were Sears / JC Penney / Radio Shack / KMart / Toys R US / Korvettes etc. I found a few scans of catalogs from those department stores and in those years, but some of them just show their unique catalog number and a description and do not include the actual make or model at times.
     
    cleanpause, Sep 3, 2022
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  2. Longman

    Longman Well-Known Member S2G Supporter

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    I love looking through old catalogues, which is why I have 42GByte of them on my hard drive here.
    Look at these two items in the same 1982 catalogue.
    Sharp 1982.jpg Lego 1982.jpg
    Yes that is £19.99 for all that Lego !
    You just had to hope your kids didn't want the latest Sharp boombox instead.
    The reason I joined Stereo2Go was to point out that quality Boomboxes weren't cheap when they came out.

    Many of my catalogues have come from discs like
    https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/385069924580
    I recently bought one just to get about five Dixons catalogues I didn't have.
    Dixons 1982 front.jpg
    For free catalogues check out
    https://retromash.com/argos/
    All from the same U.K. retailer but since they were huge and prided themselves on low prices well worth a look.

    You are right that many of the American retailers only ever sold own brand products.
    Below are Radio Shack;s offerings from 1982 taken from https://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/
    I could only get that site to work using Edge.
    Radio Shack 1982.jpg


    Finally two other sites worth looking at are

    https://worldradiohistory.com/
    Mainly Magazines but of course they have loads of adverts

    And
    https://www.hifi-archiv.info/
    For manufacturers catalogues and brochures
     
    Longman, Sep 3, 2022
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  3. Mister X

    Mister X Moderator Staff Member

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    I'm not exactly sure what your asking for, the literature kind of goes in steps starting with "cut-sheets" a page or of one product put out by the manufacture, then the larger catalog, they could be by year or a type of product (cassette players?) and then department store catalogs usually with private labeled products, some clones, some unique. A ton has been posted in the boombox/Walkman archaeology threads and down here.

    Here's Sears, Wards and a few others.
    http://www.wishbookweb.com/

    Here's Radio Shack
    https://www.radioshackcatalogs.com/

    Crutchfield had some eye candy from the 80's, there's more posted but they're hard to find.
    https://archive.org/details/CrutchfieldSpring1982/mode/2up

    archive.org has the worse search engine, I search through google, ie. "crutchfield site: archive.org" but you can look for years and then out of the blue something will pop up.

    One of our members from Japan started this website with the manufacturer's cut sheets.
    https://catalogism.com/

    Don't forget www.WorldRadioHistory.com there's not a ton of portable equipment in those magazines but there are some tidbits.

    I used to live south of you, spent a lot of time at the Orbit Room in the late 80's checking out bands and living on the beach in South Haven. We'd look for the big boombox to spread our towels out by, loved listening to music on the beach.
     
    Mister X, Sep 4, 2022
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  4. Longman

    Longman Well-Known Member S2G Supporter

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    There are quite a few Sears and Wards catalogs on the DVDs I have. I think some of the sellers just grab what they can find from the web and put it on a disc. Unlike the first one I bought where I got the impession someone had done the whole thing at work, including using the companies franking machine to send it out !
    Most of the General Catalogues seemed to two a year. The Spring/Summer one would have an emphasis on Garden Equipment,Outdoor Sporting Goods, and Summer Clothes, while the Autumn(Fall)/Winter one would have warm clothes and of course everything needed for Chritmas including a large selection of toys. They really are a time capsule and it is interesting to see how the fashions for home furnishing, lighting etc changed and were different in different countries. e.g. the Americans love for huge console TVs in the 1980s.

    While Argos is still around https://www.argos.co.uk/ they discontinued their paper catalogues during the pandemic and closed many shops.
    A shame as there will be no record of the 2022 range in 2024. There again the days of learning about the latest electronic gadget from its appearance in a store catalogue are long gone.
     
    Longman, Sep 4, 2022
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  5. Arky Malarkey

    Arky Malarkey New Member

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    Arky Malarkey, Oct 1, 2022
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