Crown was putting out some cool R2R portables, I wonder how close they were to Sony's Products, they really had very similar audio/visual output in the 60's-70's. There are not very many R2R's with a built in radio, this is the only one I remember.
Found this over on X (Japan), the poster, HIFI Maclord said: "BUBU CRC-465 (SL)&CRC-495 (SL TYPEII) These two are probably the first lineup of Daiebubu radio cassette players. They were made by Crown and were also exported under the CROWN brand."
Here's some info from Nikkei.com https://www-nikkei-com.translate.go...tr_sl=ja&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=sc As consumers become more frugal, private brand (PB) products produced by retailers are gaining attention. They are generally considered cheaper than manufacturer's products, and many of the products are daily necessities or consumables. Looking back at the history of PB products produced by Kansai retailers, the situation surrounding consumption at the time becomes clear. Daiei is a Kansai retailer that has been focusing on private brands from the very beginning. According to the Daiei Museum at the University of Marketing and Distribution Sciences in Kobe, the first product was instant coffee, which went on sale in 1961. It was sold in aluminum packs, which were rare at the time, and although it was a luxury item, it is said that lines formed at the sales floor. However, in the 1960s, the scale of retail was smaller than it is today, and consumers were more inclined to buy from major manufacturers, so private brands did not spread immediately. In this environment, Daiei worked on collaborations with major manufacturers. Specifically, it created a product called "Double Chop," which was sold jointly with the manufacturer. However, at the time, many manufacturers were not happy to work with Daiei, which had gained consumer support by selling manufacturer-made products at low prices. Many manufacturers bought up their own products from Daiei's stores, which were running flashy discount sales. Nevertheless, some manufacturers began to acknowledge Daiei's sales power, and in 1962, Toyobo , a leading manufacturer of dress shirts , signed a contract with Daiei. According to Daiei's company history, Daiei's clothing brand remained "Blue Mountain" until 1968. Of course, Toyobo is not the only case. The conflict became so acute that Matsushita Electric Industrial (now Panasonic ) completely stopped supplying products. In the midst of this, Daiei released a 13-inch color television under its own brand, "BuBu," in 1970. It was priced at 59,800 yen, half the price of manufacturer's products at the time. The Sannomiya store (Kobe City) had 510 units prepared, but held a lottery. BuBu later went on to release washing machines and calculators. A former Daiei executive who was there at the time said, "We had mid-sized manufacturer Crown manufacture our televisions, but sales were poor after that. In contrast, the electric fans produced by Mitsubishi Electric were a huge hit, selling hundreds of thousands of units. Consumers' faith in manufacturers was strong after all." The person in charge will be Nobuo Nagai, Deputy Director of the Osaka Economic Department. This translation is a little hard to understand but fascinating that manufacturers bought their own products from the stores, presumably to resell?
I disagree. That's just a box with no boom because if it had any boom the record player would skip. And it wouldn't play correctly.
Its more like a world receiver. "Special production for our guest workers" the flyer says. Funny, because quite some of my local found quality boomboxes had owners that were involved with people that connected to US army bases in Germany in the 70/80's.
Wrong, now I see the its a flyer from Turkexport Yimaz. Its obvious a world receiver device for Turkish guest workers. Probably to listen to home stations on the 19meter band.
The start of this thread is amazing btw. I missed it completely during my boombox lock down I guess Deech was really the king of the crowns! Is he still around?
I was stationed in wurzburg Germany Leighton barracks from 1978 until 1979 and then I moved to Schweinfurt Germany, at Conn concern with a k from 79 until 80 and then I exited the army and went back home to wherever
Interesting information, the world-band radios always look much more sophisticated but we only got AM/FM over here. With all the digging I've done, I've pretty much narrowed it down to AIWA, Crown and Philips as the first radio-cassette makers. Crown was definately in a great position with units like this, I've got a similar AIWA out in the shop but I think it's stereo. Deech still pops in every once in a while, he's in Greece where they had a ton of cool old boomboxes, I guess the island nature of the area made it a perfect sales territory.
One of the cool art deco units came up for sale, these are really neat but kind of quirky. https://www.ebay.com/itm/387680413431?
I don't know if this suitcase beauty has come up yet but I like it! The Crown RX-2000, it looks like the little brother to the RX-9800 https://www.ebay.com/itm/135413244711
