From Playboy Magazine June 1980, you have to give them credit, they showcased a slim side-view with the ultra-small headphones. Who would have guessed these go for silly-money now?
Nice ad! I had to look it up, but 200USD in 1980 was actually quite a lot. It would be 727USD today, the cost of a smartphone.
I love this sort of thing. The reason I joined the forum was to compare the price of the new Boombox with the new motorbike I bought around that time. I just found this discussion on bike prices https://www.vitalmx.com/forums/Moto-Related,20/Sales-figures-and-prices-past-30-years,1183777 In the 5th post someone says they bought a new, water cooled (Yamaha) bike for $1200 back in 1981. Of course Yamaha would have had lots of competition from Honda, Yamaha, and Kawasaki back then while for a short while the TPS-L2 had no competition. I didn't even consider buying a personal cassette player until I could get a Sanyo for about £30 ($60). p.s. Did anyone else notice the price of the Braun clock. You could buy a similar Seiko for 1/3rd of that in 2022 dollars today.
Braun was still making some neat "industrial design" back then probably made in EU somewhere so it was considered a premium brand over here. I still remember dozens of step-through scooters in college, they went for around $350 USD, I still couldn't afford one but did snag a Yamaha U7E out of a farmer's field for $50, got it running and rode it for a few years. Sometimes the price you see is retail and then, it seems, that Playboy posts "street price," electronics were heavily discounted here. Sony didn't like "street pricing" is wasn't fair for the smaller camera shops to compete against the big chain stores so they tried to keep pricing at list.
Seiko's TV Watch from 1983, big money back then! This was most like list price, street price might be $350 USD?
Thanks for sharing! These multi-page interviews I like to store as PDF, find it attached if other members like to do the same.
The Boston Phoenix 1983, the Small Wonders of CES In case your wondering why these are so large, it's out of a newspaper and shrinking it makes it harder to read.
An ad for a Sony FD20G Watchman from 1983, it's the "New England Patriots" Model! Some of these had the co-branding printed on them for various sports.
Another co-branding with Honda! From 1985, they sold a ton of this model, I have several on a shelf to prove it! They actually had this ad printed twice in the same issue of the Boston Phoenix! Big money for a full page newspaper ad.
