The history of Conic (Hong Kong), they had a small line of boomboxes but might have been a subcontractor for many others, it looks like they made TVs for others including GE and JVC. https://industrialhistoryhk.org/conic-hk-electronics-giant-of-the-late-1970s-early-1980s/ Born in 1938 in Amoy, Conic Group’s founder Alex Au left Fukien and came to HK in the early 1950s. His family was in the tea export business but when the family business failed, he had to drop out of secondary school to work as an apprentice in a plastic factory. At the age of 27 in 1965, he acquired a 900 square feet plastic factory in Hung Hom and renamed it Chee Yuen Industrial (志源實業). Starting with HK$50000 in working capital, 5 injection molding machines and 5 employees, Chee Yuen became the largest manufacturer of plastic casings for electronic products in HK within a few years and had sales of HK$17.8 mil by 1972. With the strong foundation of Chee Yuen, Au expanded into electronics in 1973 and incorporated Cony Electronic Products (康力電子, allegedly named to sound like Sony) with Tam Chung-sing (譚頌聲,?-1994) at the helm to manufacture cassette tape players and radios. The stock market crash in 1973 and economic recession in the mid-1970s became an opportunity for Au who made a series of acquisitions including radio manufacturers and local manufacturing operations of foreign firms who rather outsource manufacturing to Conic than managing their own factories. One of these firms was one of Chee Yuen’s clients – Far East United Electronics (聯華電子, same Chinese name as UMC in Taiwan but no relations). Founded in 1969 by Lam Chung-kiu (林中翹, 1936-), who had previously worked for Japanese and American electronic firms and Chambers Wong Toa-Yuen (王道源, 1939-) at a 3000 sq ft plant in Mok Cheong Street in To Kwa Wan to manufacture radios with less than 100 workers, Far East United was a leading radio manufacturer in HK by 1972 when it moved to its own 11 story industrial building at 171 Hoi Bun Road in Kwun Tong
The previous website has some great historical information about Hong Kong Manufacturing, here's one that briefly talks about transistor radio manufacturers in Hong Kong. https://industrialhistoryhk.org/transistor-radio-manufacturers-1963/
Asia International Electronics, also in Hong Kong, it made 50% of the radio market in 1974 https://industrialhistoryhk.org/asia-international-electronics-ltd- One of Williamsons only boomboxes, the AIE-2000
Mu:zines has posted some great magazine scans, hopefully they get more to fill in their collection. https://www.muzines.co.uk/ Sharp GF-990G from 1993, Electronics Music Maker Magazine
Some more good stuff, Panasonic SG-J500 Electronic Soundmaker Computer Music, Nov 1983 These are really nice, low to mid-level, they were a better version of the 70's portable turntable, most for sale seemed to have held up pretty good over time.
Heron Ingersoll XK818 Electronics Music Maker Magazine, Mar 1983 Here's a nice looking mini, it's a little different with the controls on the front. Where did they come up with Ingersoll? Over here it's a brand of air compressor among other things.
Is this the first boombox ad? From April 1967, the Norelco (Philips) 22RL962 is shown in the bottom right.
nickeccles, nice to see you popping in again! I've got about 30 dirty boomboxes and would love to take your detailing class for crusty boomboxes. Where did this come from, UK only? Were they broken due to dropping or the electronics were junk? Please post in the mini-boombox thread, it's really interesting.
I think Ingersoll was a conglomerate like others we have discussed. I have always associated them with locks, which are still available https://www.ingersolllocks.co.uk/ However, the number one search on Google was for Ingersoll watches. Their electronics products were in the Argos catalogue for quite a few years along with ones from sewing machine manufacturer Jones. Back then people were far more likely to buy a product from a brand they had heard of than an unknown one like Samsung or Goldstar. Maybe @nickeccles has worked out who actually made them. p.s. Here it is in the 1982 Argos catalogue competing against a Sharp mini that is almost twice the price Interesting that Sharp is the only Japanese brand making an appearance (although I expect many of the boxes were made in Japan or Hong Kong. The only real mystery is the Kisho box. That brand doesn't bring back any memories at all. Maybe it was something Argos invented themselves. Years later they would buy the Bush brand to stick on Chinese imports.
They sure made it confusing with all of the different brands, I think the UK was really trying to hold on to it's electronics manufacturing, our retail was pretty much Japanese Imports at this point and the USA Names were sold or dissolved. Did we ever discuss if any countries made their own portables? I know there's the random German and Swiss Boomboxes but what about UK, Italy or USA? We also hear about licensed boomboxes but it's not really homegrown.
Two European Manufacturers that I can think of are: Grundig. I have a Grundig Radio Cassette recorder bought because it was made in the U.K. (Northern Ireland to be precise) Philips. In 1989 I bought new, a Philips Roller 2 which was made in Austria. At the start of the 1980s Philips was a huge company. I reckon you could have bought every electrical item needed for a house from them, from Light Bulbs, through Kitchen Appliances, to TV and Audio gear. They made the majority of the components in them as well. Top ten semiconductor company NXP is a spin off from Philips. Most of the other manufacturers, like Fergusson and Bush, were Radio and Television manufacturers who were still well known and making TVs in the 1980s. I guess that, having eliminated all mechanics from the TVs, they didn't have the mechanical expertise to make a cassette deck. When they were making record players in the 1970s they typically bought in Record decks from either BSR or Garrard who specialised in those. I have this excellent book: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Setmakers-History-Television-Industry-1991-01-30/dp/B01K9A3REQ/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=the+setmakers&qid=1637928723&qsid=262-7467852-3003352&sr=8-3&sres=0951704206,B0063E0J6W,B01K9A3REQ,B07CH612JQ,B00844D5FG,B00KM15VWY,B0001IX3KA,B0016OSC72,B000YJ9G5M,B00018GJ06,B00275FV5K,B000YJBH0Y,B07VCSLRHQ,B07G395ZWF,B07M987BC9,B07YM27QNY about the history of the British Radio and TV industry. Unfortunately it had all but gone by 2010 with the majority of TVs sold here being made in Turkey. Looking through it I spotted these interesting pictures. It seems that in 1984 if you bought a JVC TV in Europe it was actually a Ferguson. It was more well known back then that if you bought a Ferguson VCR it was a JVC. Nowadays, both those brands mean nothing when stuck on the front of something.
One was cosmetically beyond saving but had a repairable tape deck mech, nice looking one shown here had a snapped tuning cord & support posts were all brittle & snapped at a touch! The tuning cord is mounted in the rear part of the casing & changing it out was no easy task, just patience & doing very carefully & taking my time! As for cleaning, simply clean then clean all over again & repeat until you like what you see......
The Straits Times, April 1979, anybody have the Hitachi CKP110? Sorry the columns don't line up, it goes with the 4th row.
I am looking at that Conic at the top of the page, what year is that? This is a Soviet Vega-326 circa 1977. Tape mechanism is from Hungary. I suppose, it is fully mono. As spec'd, frequency range is pitiful 200 Hz - 7 KHz. The woman is probably a worker from the factory, they took her outside to make a quick photo of current production item
