How to Collect Transistor Radios

For Beginners

So you want to become a transistor radio collector. Good. The first thing that you should do is to get some information. If you are going to collect seriously you will want to know what to collect, which model was made by which manufacturer, when it was made and so on.

Get some information

Your first move should be to go out and get some books. If I had to have only one book I would choose Collector's Guide to Transistor Radios by Marty & Sue Bunis. This is in many ways a bad book as it is very limited in listing and descriptions, the prices are all superseded and there are many mistakes but it is the only one of it's kind available to-day and so you will have to live with it until something better comes along. News have just reached me that the second edition of this book is just out now (February 1996) and that the photographs in this one are all different from the previous one. So you will need both of them.

The next book is TRANSISTOR RADIOS a Collector's Encyclopedia and Price Guide by David and Robert Lane. Unlike the Bunis book in which all the photographs are in colour, all the pictures in this book are in black and white except four central pages which round up all the best sets in the authors' collection shot in colour. In this book also the prices are approximate and I personally wish that the authors of this kind of book would stop quoting them as they soon become obsolete and don't help anybody as they are so personal and useless.

The third book in this series is Poster's RADIO & TELEVISION price guide 1920-1990 by Harry Poster which is somehow more limited than the other two as it also includes valve radios and television sets.

Another beautiful book you could get is MADE IN JAPAN by Handy, Erbe, Blackman and Antonier. This is a sort of coffee table book with many astonishing colour photographs (the best I have seen anywhere) but unfortunately it is not much help in identifying and dating the sets as there is absolutely no practical information on dates and models.

Another very useful support in building up your knowledge on historical transistor radios are the PHOTOFACT Folders published in the late fifties and sixties by Howard W. Sams & Co.Inc. These were part of the trade information sheets which included schematic diagrams and servicing information. What is good about them is that each radio is illustrated with a photograph and for some sets this is the only photo available in public print. As the copyright has now ceased it is possible to have some photocopies made from somebody else's copy, if you are lucky enough.

And finally last but not least The Portable Radio in American Life by Michael Brian Schiffer, a very well written book with plenty of illustrations and sources of information.

Then there are a series of handy booklets from Eric Wrobbel, one of the most serious tr collectors in USA: the first one is titled The REGENCY family and is, of course, dedicated to the first transistor radio ever produced. The second one is SONY Transistor Radios and is a sort of photographic catalogue of nearly all the collectable models and the third one is Collectible Transistor radios from TOSHIBA and Trancel. His latest ones (Collectible Transistor radios by REALTONE, Collectible Transistor radios from STANDARD and Collectible Transistor radios from GLOBAL are just what the name implies. These booklets are produced on the cheap (photocopied) and contain only very basic photos but are the only ones which somehow go into more details than the "official" ones. Two new ones: Toy Crystal Radios and American shirt pocket Transistor Radios have appeared (in colour) after this article was written but I am adding them here.

Join a club

The only, sort of, club in existence to-day is TRANSISTOR NETWORK which produces a monthly newsletter with the same name. Not surprisingly this is published in the United States as more than half the Japanese transistor radio production ended up in USA and the transistor is an American invention anyway.

This newsletter is full of advertisements and if you are looking for something in particular it is bound to turn up one day or other. Or you could put your "wanted" advertisement in there (it's free). The only snag here is that it also deals with novelty radios.

TR Radio mini-history

Contrary to popular belief the transistor radio is an American invention. The Japanese tr sets, which we all (over 50s) loved and bought at the time, only came about after the first American transistor radio, the Regency TR-1, was put on the market just in time for the Christmas season of 1954. This was the result of a six months crash project from a, then relatively unknown, firm called Texas Instruments. The TR-1 was manufactured in Indianapolis by a TV booster firm called I.D.E.A.

It was the first portable transistor radio ever and also the first pocket one. It was available at first in a black, ivory, red or gray plastic cabinet and its price was $ 49.95 excluding the carrying case and the earphone. If you are serious about collecting tr radios you must have one.

The TR-1 was the first but not by long. The second transistor radio ever was the Raytheon 8 TP-1 and it was put on the market in February 1955. This was a much larger wooden cased set which cost a lot more (but sounded a lot better).

The first transistor radio made in Japan in August 1955 was the SONY TR-55 (which at the time called itself TOKYO TSUSHIN KOGYO LTD.). This is a very difficult set to find as very few were made and also it was sold only on the internal market. The first really "pocketable" set made by SONY in Japan was the TR-63 which came out in March 1957.

How to build up your collection

What to collect is, of course, a matter of personal taste and preferences but if the collection has to have an historical purpose it must consist of some American, many Japanese and a few British, German and whatever sets.

I will list here what I think could be a meaninful basic collection:

AMERICAN

  1. a Regency TR-1 = because it is the first one
  2. a Raytheon 8TP-1 = because it is the second one
  3. a Zenith Royal 500 = the first produced by Zenith
  4. a Westinghouse H 602 P7 = the first one by W.
  5. a Sylvania Thunderbird 3102 = the first S.
  6. a RCA 7 BT 10 = the first by RCA
  7. a Philco T7-124 = the first by Philco
  8. a Motorola 56 T1 = the first M.
  9. a General Electric 675 = the first GE
  10. an Emerson 842 = the first E.
  11. an Emerson 888 = because is the most popular E.
  12. an Admiral 7L 12 = the first A.
  13. a Dewald K-701-A = the first D.
  14. a Zenith Royal 1000 Trans-oceanic = because it is the first transistorized model of all the 'Trans-oceanics".

JAPANESE

  1. a SONY TR-55 (you will be lucky! There are only a handful of known examples in collectors hands to-day) = SONY's first one (photo by Marty Bunis )
  2. a SONY TR-72 = SONY's second important one
  3. a SONY TR-6 = SONY's first set to use the Mitsumi's Polyvaricon tuning condenser
  4. a SONY TR-63 = SONY's first shirt pocket model
  5. a SONY TFM-151 = possibly the world's first tr FM radio
  6. a SONY TR-610 = the most typical of all transistor radios
  7. a SONY TR-714 = first world shirt pocket Short Wave (and AM) radio
  8. a SONY TR-620 = SONY's last of the historical glamorous shirt pocket radios
  9. a SONY ICR-100 = possibly the first integrated circuit radio on the world market
  10. a SONY ICR-120 = smallest loudspeaker radio ever built (still unchallenged)
  11. several STANDARD Micronic Ruby sets = the most cute and diminutive transistor sets ever made
  12. a Toshiba "Lace" 5TR-193 (or 194) = because it has a real lace enbedded in the translucent plastic case!
  13. a Global GR-711 = because it is the most beautifully designed of all the shirt pocket radios (I like it anyway)
  14. a Fleetwood NTR-150 = because it is another striking design of the period
  15. a Wilco 360 = because it was one of the most popular sets at the time
  16. a Sanyo 6C-022 = because it was the second shirt pocket set on the market after Sony's TR-610 (also known in the USA as Channel Master 6509)
  17. a Marvel 6YR-15A = because it was the smallest full feature tr radio at the time
  18. an Aiwa AR-665 = because it was one of the most sold sets of the time (also know in the USA as Packard Bell and other brand names)
  19. a Realtone TR-1088 = because of the unusual cabinet decoration

BRITISH

  1. a PAM 710 (Courtesy of Jonathan Hill) = because it is the first British tr set
  2. an His Master Voice (or Marconiphone) 1410G = because it is a hybrid set (half valves and half transistors)
  3. a Sinclair Micro 6 (and Micromatic) = for the miniature size and for the fame of its inventor

GERMAN

  1. a Braun T3 = for the beautiful clean cabinet design
  2. a Telefunken TR-1 = the first German tr radio

DUTCH

    Philips IC-2000 = possibly the first IC radio on the world market

ITALIAN

  1. a Voxon Zephir = the first Italian tr radio
  2. a Brionvega TS 502 (cube radio) = for the award winning cabinet design

There are , of course, many more which are important or just beautiful but I have to draw a line somewhere and I am drawing it here.

There are then all sorts of choices and preferences or you might just like to acquire whatever comes along but I am afraid that this way is not going to prove very productive in the end. In my view it is better to have few worthwhile sets rather that many unmeaningful radios which do not follow an historical pattern.

Dating and identifying

The first thing you must look for in a transistor radio for dating purposes is if the dial has any, so called, CD (Civil Defence) marks. These were in the shape of little triangular marks which should appear in all the transistor radios, wherever coming from, made up to 1963. These marks were meant, in the USA, to show the frequencies for the emergency tuning of the radios in case of nuclear attack from the USSR. It was about the time of the cold war and the American authorities were much concerned by the fact that known frequencies could have been used to guide intercontinental missiles to their destinations.

Then you should look and see if you can determine if the set has been made in the USA, in Japan or indeed somewhere else. Generally speaking historical sets were made in the USA from 1954 to 1961 and Japanese ones from 1956 to 1966. Then came Hong Kong which roughly covers the period from 1964 to 1970s.

Subsequently you should look inside and see if you can recognize the style of design and costruction. Generally speaking the early sets had a case made with thicker plastic than the later ones. The Japanese sets used the incredibly small encapsulated tuning condensers made by a firm called MITSUMI which gave them the name of Polyvaricons while the American sets were still using the open air style variable condensers.

The early transistors can be recognized by their "funny" shapes: oval, oblong, with a lower flange or with a top nipple. All in all as the technology improved the printed circuit were "machine" soldered as opposed to the early manufacturing processes which called for "hand" wiring. Early USA made transistors used models starting with 2N numbers and, of course, the lower the number the older the date of manufacture.

Early Japanese transistors bear the 2S number series and later ones 2SA and 2SB.

Some transistor manufacturers used their own numbering systems, the most typical being the CK series by Raytheon and the OC by Philips and Mullard.

If you are lucky enough to find the case as well, this could give you a clue for dating the set, as early production were enclosed in real leather while later ones used simulated leather or vinyl.

To-day is still a good time to start collecting as the more seasoned wireless collector still regards the transistor radios as a sort of novelty set without realizing the enormous importance that tr sets had in changing the social behaviour and the history of communications.

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Enrico Tedeschi, e.tedeschi@ndirect.co.uk

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