Anyone have (or at least have a pic of) the Sharp GF-7474?

A bird-dogger dealer called me and said he found me one he says is "very nice" (meaning not too corroded, I guess. LOL). I know I already have one, but it is buried behind others that I can't/won't move right now, and I can only remember a general impression of it, not enough details, and I can't see/get the new one for a few days. Arghh!

I searched here for it, and the only hits (4) were from the thread I started when I found the first one, before. A Web search using Google gets ZERO hits.

This really surprised me. Is this box that rare? It's a GF, and most of those aren't all that rare, I thought. Or is it just because it starts with "7" and not "9" that no one posts about it, even though they may have it? Just curious.

I'm eager to "scratch the itch" and go see/get this, but in the meantime does anyone have a pic or info about this box? Jens, maybe, in the DB?

I'll try to post a pic after I get this one, if there is no pic out there yet. Thanks.

the super rare


sharp#-gf7474 IBBN 7-05297





Oho-it`s indeed a big luck !you found one in reality!

quote:

Originally posted by Arkay:
Anyone have (or at least have a pic of) the Sharp GF-7474?

I know I already have one, but it is buried behind others that I can't/won't move right now,

Please Post a Picture Of That Pile, Group, Gaggle, or, Other's of BoomBox's that you ( that I can't/won't move right now, ) OK? Thanks, James.

quote:

Originally posted by DecentMan4you:

quote:

Originally posted by Arkay:
Anyone have (or at least have a pic of) the Sharp GF-7474?

I know I already have one, but it is buried behind others that I can't/won't move right now,

Please Post a Picture Of That Pile, Group, Gaggle, or, Other's of BoomBox's that you ( that I can't/won't move right now, ) OK? Thanks, James.

I probably can within a few days, but you wouldn't like what you see ... and you can't see much, anyway, as each of the boxes there is wrapped up in protective plastic. Lack of space really sucks, big time! Wish I were richer, and could display the boxes properly and nicely, all lined up along walls, like RADIOHIER and some of the other people here. I can only keep fewer than ten boxes on display inside my apartment, even if I "push it" a bit. Well, I COULD display perhaps twenty or thirty more, if I ran a shelp up high all around the living room walls, but then I'd probably have to get divorced... and to be honest, as much as I like the boxes, it would ruin the decor (too much contrast in style). Uh-uh!

What I'm hoping to do is work out a system where it is easy to move stacks around on wheels, like those record-keeping things in banks, and each box will be cataloged in the computer, including what shelf number it is on.

Even then, I'm hitting close to the limits of what I'll be able to keep, so some selling will have to occur, probably this year. Sometimes it's hard to part with these, but I tell myself that at least the people buying them will be appreciative collectors who will take care of them, not some folks in Africa just buying "a radio" that they'll probably eventually beat to death and scrap.

Also, I tell myself that at least I can enjoy seeing and owning them for a while, before passing them on, and I can always keep a "core" collection of favorites. I just recently brought home another twenty or so boxes, and found a couple of them were duplicates. I don't need duplicates, really, but I still like them. There is a part of me that would love to have a big space with hundreds of all the rarest boxes, lined up gleaming in row after row, with multiples of the favorites, like a couple of guys here actually have. One could spend hours in a place like that, just admiring and playing with them. Maybe it would make more sense to use them to decorate a restaurant or a private club or something like that, but there are probably not enough people in any one location who like these things enough to make it economically feasible.

And while the supply of audio gear is gradually dwindling here, I still get a few each week, which makes hundreds over a year... so I really have no choice but ignore them or sell them, and of the two I'd rather sell them, so that's what I'll eventually do.

OOPS!

Hi. looks like the JVc 838 with UNDERSIZED speakers.I do prefer the GF-9000 with REAL WOOFERS.Indeed is a RARE model.

quote:

Originally posted by jvc:
Hi. looks like the JVc 838 with UNDERSIZED speakers.I do prefer the GF-9000 with REAL WOOFERS.Indeed is a RARE model.

Interesting. I'll have to compare it more closely with both those models when I get this 7474 and get it home. Should happen tomorrow! Of course you're right about the GF-9000 - it has REAL, BIG, BAD and MEAN woofers! One of my favorite boxes, overall.

quote:

Originally posted by Arkay:
I know I already have one, but it is buried behind others that I can't/won't move right now. Sometimes it's hard to part with these, but I tell myself that at least the people buying them will be appreciative collectors who will take care of them. I can always keep a "core" collection of favorites. I just recently brought home another twenty or so boxes, and found a couple of them were duplicates.

So... your plan is to keep a "core" of favorites, but you just recently brought home twenty more. Spoken (well, written) like a true hoarder! I know because I am one. In fact, my wife has told me that pretty much everything I like I collect. Everything I have is part of some sort of a collection or another, from records to toys to transistor radios to boomboxes to scents of Axe deodorant! Like you and your 7474, I often re-buy CD's I want to play, simply because I can't - or don't want to spend the time trying to - find the ones I already own that are buried in my collection somewhere (most of which is in boxes, most of which are in stacks, most of which are in a large u-store-it room a few miles from here).

As I grow older, I find myself growing more aware of - and more worried about - my need to accumulate "collections." For one thing, I've discovered that there is never a true saturation point. There is never a time when I think, "There. I've got enough. My collection is complete (or as complete as it needs to be). I can be done buying these." No matter how many boomboxes I buy, there's always one more (and usually many more) I "need" and that I feel driven to add to the collection. Buying stuff when you're a hoarder is only satisfying for a short time. In the end, it's like eating carbs: it simply creates the need and desire for more. The cycle is endless.

For another thing, as you've discovered, there's the matter of storage space.

But I continue to justify my boombox collecting with an assortment of rationalizations, some of which you're familar with. I only want the rare ones. I want extras, so that if something happens to one, I still have (at least) one left over. I like owning pairs (or triplets or quads). I like different versions/colors/brands of the same box. I want to make sure I have the Holy Grails, which are the biggest and loudest and fanciest and will make me proud and get me respect from other collectors. No collection is complete without one of these. I need one that works and a few more for parts. I want a complete collection of one brand. But mostly, I just love them! I like their design, sound, feel and smell... not to mention how they bring back memories of the eighties and breakdancing. (I could go on, but you get the idea.)

My boombox collection, which now numbers in the hundreds (I'm afraid to count), is filled with duplicates (often because I keep buying the same model until I get a perfect one), pairs (not identical twins, but cousins: different versions of the same box), grails and rarities. I take pride that (like you, I think) I own a double-cassette Corona, a Prosonic and Unitech version of the same "grail," a wacky-looking Sencor 4800, a complete set of Sharp QT-50's, an everybody-wants-one Telefunken M-1, a couple of M90's, a bunch of M70's, a handful of big Sharps and their Japanese counterparts, four versions of the Panasonic 5150, four versions of the Panasonic RF-2600 shortwave radio, an almost one-of-a-kind Panasonic RX-5104 (just like the common 5100, but labeled in Spanish and manufactured in Mexico) and every Crown boombox model ever made (well, almost).

Fortunately, my buying of these things has lately, finally slowed down a bit... not so much beacuse I've run out of room to store them (although I have, long ago), and not because I'm now 60 years old and can't imagine being 70 and having to deal with all this "stuff," and definitely not because I've licked the hoarding addiciton. (I still manage to justify buying, say, crappy little beater Sanyo boxes at a local thrift stores.) ("But it was so cheap!" I tell myself... and my wife.) No, I've slowed down somewhat in my collecting because I think I'm finally starting to grow a little tired of the things I collect. I'm finally a bit tired of looking at and playing and playing with radios and records and toys and boomboxes and electric shavers (forgot to mention that one earlier) and deodorant. At least, I think I am. (Fortunately, I'm not tired of actually using deodorant!) And, in the end, that, and only that, is what I think will really cure me of my collecting addiciton. Not swearing it off, not vowing to "lick this thing," but no longer being interested in what I collect.

As callous as that may sound, I think it's happened to other collectors. In fact, I run into those collectors fairly often: at "shows," on eBay, and even in posts here on S2G. People who have marvelous, lifelong, expensive, hard-fought collections, but who are finally throwing in the towel and getting rid of them. Of course, I know that a financial hardship could bring a collector to that point, as could some other crisis. But I suspect, more often than not, it's simply because the collector has finally just lost interest in what he or she collects. As one toy seller at a recent show told me when I asked him how he could part with his "babies" at such reasonable prices: "I've owned them long enough. They don't bring me pleasure anymore. It's time they brought pleasure to someone else."

Of course, what I finally do with all my boomboxes in the next ten years or so is another matter. It's taken me the greater portion of the past 25 years to gather these things together; I doubt I can dispose of them all in ten. After all, I don't want to sell them on eBay, because that's too hard. (Who wants to list, pack, and go to the post office with hundreds of boomboxes for a bunch of fussy, cheap, demanding [and sometimes dishonest] eBay buyers?) But I'm not sure I just want to drop off my stuff en masse at a Salvation Army store, either, although that would be a reasonable way out, since I'd be just as happy with a massive tax deduction as I'd be with cash. But I'd hate watching my beautiful boxes get tossed into a bin and then put out on shelves for a few dollars apiece, only to be bought, not by poor people or collectors, but by greedy eBay sellers who would mark them way up and make a killing on them on the Internet. And I don't want to have to set them all up and take them all down every weekend at convention center "shows" that I'd have to drive 500 miles to get to, and where I'd be forced to watch over my stuff like a hawk, while listening to a string of idiots try to talk me down from whatever reasonable/cheap prices I was already asking. ("A dollar?! Would you take a quarter?") And I really don't want to force my wife or daughter to have to sort everything out after I'm gone (a daunting, time-consuming task, if there ever was one), although that's most likely what will happen. I guess my first choice right now would be to look up an auctioneer and let him or her determine the value of what I've got, while eventually giving me a percentage of that value after a series of Sotheby's-like estate auctions. Unfortunately, I'm not really sure who to trust and/or call to get started with a project like that.

Which is why the stuff stays where it is, both in the house and in the store room, and why I occasionally pull out a couple of boomboxes I like, fire them up, and listen to them for a day or two. What else does a person do with hundreds of boomboxes? Sometimes I even take pictures of them and post them, as well as write about them, here. After all, if I couldn't show off my boomboxes in this forum, I'd be completely lost! In fact, I probably wouldn't own so many of them in the first place.

So, good luck, Arkay, with your collecting/hoarding. I hope you eventually figure out a) a system for dealing with more boomboxes than you can keep track of, b) a place or places where you can easily store them and retrieve them, and c) what to do with them as you grow older. I'm guessing mine will pretty much stay where they are, as their tape belts turn to goo and their capacitors dry up, and as they earn Storage USA a hefty, steady income.

Of course, there's always the chance that, contrary to the common wisdom, I will be able to "take them with me"!

Babyboomer, thanks for a very frank and thought-provoking response.

From the sound of it, I'm not QUITE as "bad" as you are. That isn't rationalizing. I'm not in denial. Nope, I'm not quite as bad because I do NOT collect deodorant bottles! In fact, I haven't used deodorant for about five years. [I changed my diet and my soap, and now I just don't stink!]

Joking aside (although the part about not using deodorant and not stinking is true), there is some truth to what you are saying. There is definitely an element of hoarding to this. In me it tends not to be broad-based, more focused on just one or two things (currently boomboxes), but all the appeals and things you mention I can identify with, to one degree or another.

A good friend of mine has a compulsive-hoarder father, who filled their apartment with rubbish of all kinds: broken stuff, plastic bags even. Finally they moved, and couldn't take the stuff with them (way too much to move), but my friend had a horrible time keeping the father from brining stuff to the new place, and starting the whole thing over again. I do NOT want to end up like that in my old age. That really isn't me, but from his story and what you say, I think this stuff starts harmlessly enough, and tends to get worse with age.

Cluttering in some alternative medicinal theories is associated with a "congested liver", and --due to the effects of gluten intolerance-- my liver tends to have this sort of problem (elevated serum bilirubin is "normal" for me). I do notice that when my diet is improved and my gluten, etc... problems diminish, not only do my energy levels increase, but I also tend to start cleaning, reparing, and yes, getting rid of stuff! So there may be something to work on there.

I certainly don't want to end up like my friend's dad. I recognize that there are certain elements of this "hobby" (obsession, whatever) that are seductive, to put it mildly. One sometimes gets the kind of thrill that I imagine problem gamblers get when they win, and possibly the "thrill of the catch" is wired into us from when our caveman ancestors went hunting, for food. I know I ENJOY the "hunt" and the "scores", almost as if it were a basic instinct. I enjoy owning the boxes afterwards, but ONLY to the extent that I can actually see them and listen to them, and right now I can only do that with a few boxes at a time. The ones piled up in storage give me a degree of satisfaction, but it is mostly a "fantasy" satisfaction, thinking about one day when I move from here to a more affordable-space place (perhaps back to the States) I will display them all ... but that could be years away still, and by that time they may have deteriorated, or I may no longer care about them. From what you've written, you are about where I do NOT want to be when I'm your age ... and I'm not all that many years behind you, now.

The key is balance, and I think you are right: while there is a "hoarder" element to collecting complete sets, etc... until one has hundreds of boxes, what is the real value of that, if you aren't actually going to endow a museum or something? While there is merit to gradually assembling a fine collection of something and getting to know about that type of thing, IF the things can be displayed and used, especially to educate the next generation, hoarding is just a kind of sickness, not something to be proud of.

I do know that when I was putting in the new shelves and piling the boxes in/on them, I started to have some similar feelings to what you describe. I realized how many boxes I already have. I found a few I had forgotten about, and a few duplicates I didn't realize I had duplicated. That just didn't feel right to me; that shouldn't happen. Each box should be a treasure to me, or I shouldn't even keep it. Such forgetting of boxes wouldn't happen if I had more space, but the fact is that I do NOT have the space to PROPERLY keep the number of boxes I already own, and how much can they REALLY mean to me if I can't even remember them all? I should not really be doing this, at least not in this way, I concluded.

What is the point of collecting them, if I don't have the resources (space, etc...) to properly care for them? Just to let them sit there and "be mine" [sounds like Gollum...maybe one day I'll be hunched over in a small cave of boomboxes in the middle of my filled-up apartment, mumbling "'tis precious, 'tis precious..."]. Letting them sit until, as you describe, the belts melt, the caps dry out, etc... is not good stewardship. Even if the boxes were cheap, it is also not good financial practice.

Where is the satisfaction of knowing that they are just there, wrapped up and hiding behind other ones, instead of being out where they can be used. They are like mummies stacked in a mass grave, that way. I don't mind being a collector with some interesting things, but I don't want to be the cemetery-keeper.

I ALMOST decided on the spot to "mass sell" 90 percent of them, and I may yet do that. Or I may put a bunch of them up on eBay, despite the laborious process you mentioned (and I agree that it is a lot of work, probably more hassle and time spent than it's worth). If I can profit doing that, though, I might continue doing so, and thus still at least get my "hunting fix" while not running into the problems of hoarding ever-more boxes with limited space. Then I could also stop any time I got bored with it, and not be faced with the question of "What do I do with all these boomboxes?"

But then it becomes a business more than a hobby. My ORIGINAL intent was only to sell the boomboxes to pay for other gear I liked more, until I "caught the boombox bug" ... but maybe I should be looking for the vaccine and lose the "disease" before it goes too much further. Mabye I should go back to the original intent.

The motivation to do so has to be sufficient before that starts, but I think it is coming soon enough for me. [I'm actually starting to hope so, but these things come in cycles/waves: some days I could part with almost all of them, and other days I crave getting more of them.]
I think you are right about collecting and collectors: eventually one tires of things. Perhaps one "grows out of them". I'm not tired of boomboxes yet, but I am getting tired of the way they stuff up all my storage space and are "buried", not living on a shelf where they can be seen and played. Maybe I can work on that as a means to get a better balance to this whole hobby.

I don't know YET where all this is headed, but I'm definitely going to give it some more deep thought. I got a call today from a consignment shop, telling me some speakers I put there have sold, and I could come in and get the money. THAT was a good feeling, too; as good a feeling as when I first found and bought the speakers. Maybe I should pursue that feeling more than getting the next boombox, at least for a while? Reclaim the space and get cash in hand, and THEN consider where I REALLY want to go with all this audio stuff? I am thinking perhaps I should do just that, at least until some sense of "balance" is restored ... the question at this point is whether the emotional side of me WANTS to make that shift badly enough to actually do it. Maybe...

Thanks again for your insightful and thought-provoking post!