Portable Cassette Newspaper Ads!

Sony CFS-350 from 1985

 

Some goodies from 1994, check out the price on the MD Player, I think this was the biggest reason it never took off in the US.

 

A cool one for the Toshiba RT-8700S from 1980, I bet Future Tronics was a pretty cool place. Check out the price on the clock radio, I'm not sure why that is so high but everyone had one like it back then.

 

Another Ad from Future Tronics, it looks like the price for the RT-8700S has dropped. The Toshiba KT-S2 is a nice unit but pretty expensive, I wonder how much the KT-S1 with recording went for. I recently scored the super-rare AM tape tuner for these units.

 

The JVC M60 from 1981, $369.00 USD, holy cow was that expensive back then. It's a very nice beautiful unit, definitely a keeper.

 

1981, the AIWA Series 10 System is $428.00 USD, pretty big money for 1981 and it doesn't include the box to make it portable. I think with the optional battery pack it stands the same size as the speakers but that would go with the carrin box.

 

Highland wasn't afraid to have some nicer boomboxes in the early days, double the price to get the current inflation rate. Free tapes was a huge bonus, sadly I don't remember these models at our local Highland but as a young boy they would have been pretty neat.

 

Some more from Highland (Michigan) 1981, the Toshiba KT S2 (with radio cartridge) is the price leader and when people realized that battery life stunk on portables but radios would play longer, they became a very popular option. The JVC RC M60 is the price leader for boxes, according to an article in another thread, JVC was thought to be high-quality by consumers but looking at the other boxes I'd say it was also the most polished and refined looking on the page.

 

We didn't have many Panasonic Components over here, I don't think I own any but Technics was also very popular here and they had entry-level to high end with the line up. The "Thruster" Speakers really hurt their reputation, they were really low-quality. The Panasonic RS-J3 was a neat little brick player, it is one of the rare ones with RCA outputs on the case. I think it was built to be a dual home/portable tape deck since it's much bigger and heavier than the WM-2 on the same page. It does have an odd feature, it has a built in MIC but the unit does not record, I haven't played around with it yet but was it made for singing along to your cassettes?

 

It looks like it has the same record playing unit, do you know Reli? I love all of the vertical players but that style seemed more to be aimed at women, they loved the smaller footprint. I think the Mitsubishi Vertical TT was more common over here, I never saw the Sharp in the old days.

 

Superscope CRS 2020 from 1980 for $109.00 USD, their most basic stereo model and seems to be mostly plastic build, most of the other companies were heading in this direction after building tanks in the 70's with internal metal chassis's and point to point wiring.

 

Radio Shack was advertising a DCC player in 1995, I don't remember the player in any of our local stores.

 

From 1988, price is Australian Dollars.