... In january this year, thinking the lots of good stuff people have in their attics or in the garajes, walking in the streets, I look a strange messaje in a telephone post, asking for someone who have old sewing machines for parts, immediately I think if an advetisement like that asking for boomboxes results... I tried put in some places and the results was amazing... The announcement says in english some like this:

OLD CASSETTE RADIOS WANTED.
CASSETE RECORDERS OF THE EARLIES 80S TO 90S, (BOOMBOXES) IN ANY CONDITION, WORKING OR NOT, ANY BRAND, ANY MODEL, I WILL PAY GOOD MONEY FOR MINT UNITS, YOU FIX THE PRICE, OLDER IS BETTER, PLEASE, OBSERVE I'M NOT BUYING BOOMBOXES WITH CD PLAYER, MP3 PLAYER OR STEREO COMPONENT SYSTEMS, OR SEPARATE AUDIO COMPONENTS. ONLY PORTABLE RADIO-CASSETTE RECORDERS. PLEASE CALL XXX-XXXX I CAN PICK-UP YOUR RADIO AT YOUR HOME. GREAT OPORTUNITY TO MAKE SOME $$$ CALL ME NOW!

After that, I'm awaiting and some calls was received two days after. In most cases, people try to sell home stereos, car stereos, speakers, or newest CD radio boomboxes, but I was very lucky getting some good pieces, here is the pictures, product of that advertisement posted in my neighborhood.

The fist mini boombox arrived from this method, was this GE model 3-5281B in very good condition and bought in a very cheap price.



Next, this PANASONIC RX-5015 from a lady who planned to put in the trash this BBx that week. non-working, but no problem, I gave $5 dlls for it.



A senior came to me to give me this GF-6060 for 5 dollars too, great deal, only needs a new belt an a deeeeper clean work, YEAH!



Another SHARP, this is a lovable red model QT-242R fully functional, $ 6 bucks, great price and great mini boombox eh?



This SONY is perfect for my boy, after $4 dollars and a removal of thousands of stickers on the whole unit, this CFS-2050 is some really nice to collect.



yep, in the advertisement I said NO CD BOOMBOXES, I know, but a guy came with this SONY CFD-460 and only asking if I take the BBx for $10 dollars.... Deal.



Another Cd boombox, this is a PANASONIC RX-E300 PLATINUM SERIES I liked the deep bass sound of this unit, and for this reason, I accepted to gave $20 dlls.



A great BBx was catched, a legendary LASONIC L-30K NEW NEW NEW !!! paying only $23 dollars for this baby, the unit is working perfectly ! One of the holy boxes for me, and in a holy price too!



The mandatory pic of my two LASONICS, two generations of the L-30 !



Well, I'm awaiting for some more interesting stuff here in my home while watching movies, a lot of people around here have a lot of great boxes, and soon many more come to me !!!

Great job Tranxmetal! A great idea too.I really like the Panasonic Platinum 3 piece.I bid on one of those on Ebay,but I got outbid.

WOW! Never thought of posting an advertisement! Maybe I'll give it a whirl! Hmmmm...

wow wow wow wow !!!!!

THE BUSINESS IS GROWING!
This morning I receive a phone call...

- Hello.
- Hello, you are the guy who is buying old radios?
- Yes, may I help you?
- Here I have an old radio, just like you are searching for, it's a big one.
- Ok, what make or brand is it?
- Magnavox.
- Mmmm... What is the model number, please?
- Model number? I don't know, let me see.... Mmm I can't find it. Do you want it? It is more like a stereo.
- A home stereo? How it looks?
- Is big, grey colour, and have three big speakers, one cassette deck and radio.
- Three speakers????
- Yes, two big speakers on the left and right side, an a bigger one in the middle.
- (o-h-m-y-g-o-d) give me your address, I can go immediately for that box!

Do you need some more clues?
SURPRISE. A HOLY GRAIL AGAIN!!!!!

A MAGNAVOX D8443



The unit is in very bad cosmetic appareance, but still complete, all knobs are present, the tape door is complete and functional, the battery cover and handle are ok, the speaker grille is not damaged, only need some black paint, only the antenna is missing.

In this pic observe the cleaning jod on the knob stereo control, and compare the conditions with the others.



The unit does not work completely, the cassette mechanism may needs new belts and complete lubrication, the motor runs. The radio is ok, AM/FM/SW still working.













So, what do you think of this method? Works, and works very well!

I feel myself bad for those ebayers who still awaiting offering a lot of money for something like this. many people around you have the holy grail you always wanted. Finally, I paid only $ 10 dollars for this piece of junk, like Mr. Poncho has named to this SuperBoomBox.

I wish I had that kind of luck locally!

Get yourself some OrangeGlo cleaning spray. The Magnavox will look like new!!

That Magnavox is a "diamond in the ruff". We can see beyond the dirt and grime. May she shine in all her glory

Great stuff, your lucky. I tried that, and got 2 people saying, "yeah I want to buy your boomboxes". Geez

Great idea and some nice scores there!

hehe, congrats man, the idea rulez

You have some excellent luck.

Like others here I have tried numerous want adds in several different venues and I've only come up with a Lasonic TRC-931, a Hitachi mini and a Sansui Walkman.

Keep going and you will have a nice collection in a short period of time. You might even be able to make a few bucks passing some of your finds on to other collectors.

I'd love to find a Helix HX-4635 with this method. Maybe posting in Canada would be luckier for me.

Dude. You totally rock. That is a great idea to get some boxes. Lots of people (older) are cleanin up simple crap and tossing it.
I am totally gonna use your idea in jersey. I'm gonna perhaps place an add tomorrow!

N I C E......

quote:

Originally posted by MasterBlaster84:
You have some excellent luck.

Like others here I have tried numerous want adds in several different venues and I've only come up with a Lasonic TRC-931, a Hitachi mini and a Sansui Walkman.

Keep going and you will have a nice collection in a short period of time. You might even be able to make a few bucks passing some of your finds on to other collectors.

Dude, if you came up with a Sansui anything related to a portable that was from their quality days you have a piece of treasure my freind!

Check it out:
http://newyork.craigslist.org/mnh/wan/581315670.html
Hope you don't mind my blatant plagiarism! Only got one (non hustler/solicitor robot) response so far from a guy in Nassau County with a Toshiba RT-120S and a severely beat up Sears box for $35. Would have bought from him if he were in one of the boroughs (except Staten Island). I'll keep you posted, but I don't anticipate anything as good as that Lasonic. Congrats!

Thanks oldskool but I think you might be Sansui biased.

Yes the sansui walkman was a nice bonus I wasn't expecting. When I went to buy the Hitachi mini the guy brought the walkman out. It is like new in the original nearly mint box so that was really nice. I posted pics a while back in the walkman section. Here is a link:Sansui FX-W31R

The Lasonic 931 still has the plastic covering on all of the windows and is fully functional so that was nice.

Unfortunately that's all the luck I've had the last 6 months, I know that's not horrible but to me that's minimal since anything worse would be no finds at all.

Excellent idea! I like it!

Your CD boxes here I would have picked up too. They are both good looking units. Even better one of them has great bass! They are usually not my thing, but they are nice.

Yeah, the newspaper ad is a splendid idea. It's definitely better for the elderly or anyone cleaning out their addict to sell a perfectly good box for cheap then to simply throw it in the trash!!!

In addition to that idea, there's also something that I've thought recently.
I've considered local pawn shops but haven't actually gone to one. One of these days, I just might check them out to see if I can score any deals/treasures for the low-low!!!!

QUE SUERTE.

quote:

Originally posted by Tranxmetal:
wow wow wow wow !!!!!

THE BUSINESS IS GROWING!
This morning I receive a phone call...

- Hello.
- Hello, you are the guy who is buying old radios?
- Yes, may I help you?
- Here I have an old radio, just like you are searching for, it's a big one.
- Ok, what make or brand is it?
- Magnavox.
- Mmmm... What is the model number, please?
- Model number? I don't know, let me see.... Mmm I can't find it. Do you want it? It is more like a stereo.
- A home stereo? How it looks?
- Is big, grey colour, and have three big speakers, one cassette deck and radio.
- Three speakers????
- Yes, two big speakers on the left and right side, an a bigger one in the middle.
- (o-h-m-y-g-o-d) give me your address, I can go immediately for that box!

Do you need some more clues?
SURPRISE. A HOLY GRAIL AGAIN!!!!!

A MAGNAVOX D8443



The unit is in very bad cosmetic appareance, but still complete, all knobs are present, the tape door is complete and functional, the battery cover and handle are ok, the speaker grille is not damaged, only need some black paint, only the antenna is missing.

In this pic observe the cleaning jod on the knob stereo control, and compare the conditions with the others.



The unit does not work completely, the cassette mechanism may needs new belts and complete lubrication, the motor runs. The radio is ok, AM/FM/SW still working.













So, what do you think of this method? Works, and works very well!

I feel myself bad for those ebayers who still awaiting offering a lot of money for something like this. many people around you have the holy grail you always wanted. Finally, I paid only $ 10 dollars for this piece of junk, like Mr. Poncho has named to this SuperBoomBox.

It sounds like a very good idea I should try myself.However,I don't feel bad for people who choose to rely on Ebay.If your looking to build a specific collection,it's really not a realistic option to only rely on newspaper ads,pawn shops,and thrift stores.Outside of buying from other collectors,Ebay or auction type sites are the only realistic way to get what you really want.Otherwise,You will have to take what you can find or wait a long long time in between purchases.It would be a quest that you couldn't complete before you died if you have a real job unless you had a great deal of help looking.

As for what a box is worth,the only way to assess this is in a market environment like Ebay.People locally can't price a given model boombox very high.It might never sell.This is because the number of people possibly wanting that specific boombox are spread out over too large an area.You don't have a large enough base of boombox collectors in a given town or city for a market value to be established.However,nationally or globally you do.For example,I might be the only collector in my town to be willing to pay a high "Ebay" amount for a boombox in a local thriftstore.Therefore to get movement out of the item in a reasonable amount of time people locally must price the items without consideration for a possible collectors market.

With Ebay you have many people who are interested in a specific category competing against each other based on an items desirability and rarity.Sometimes a bidder will pay an unusually large amount for a certain model boomer and sometimes very little.In fact I feel that Ebay is the only way we currently have to establish market values for a given blaster.Therefore,taking an average of these winning bids over a certain period of time really does answer the often asked question "What is this box worth?".

I would feel very lucky to happen upon something locally that I really wanted for only a few dollars.However for those of us building specific collections we must realize that this occurrence is the exception and not the rule.Ebay determines market value for our blasters over a period of time.Market value is...well...market value so I don't feel bad about paying Ebay prices.I can only hope my winning bid reflects the average (true market value) or a below average amount if I'm lucky.

Jovie,
You are right, as much as we like to knock ebay it does what local sales alone can't do for us. A good portion of my collection has come from ebay, it was the only way I was able to purchase some of the boxes I wanted.