Hooked On Junk

Wedding planning, work-related deadlines and a hectic penultimate semester in grad school have kept us cooped up for the most part, but we've still found time to sniff around and locate some tasty vintage electronics pieces for our growing collection. We hope those recent entries whet your appetites because this'un's a five-course meal. Dig in!

You can't imagine how happy we were when we recently found two examples of the portable UFO turntables Patrice Dupont designed for Philips in 1970. These were never widely available in the states, so we didn't expect to find 'em stranded in the midwest. Now we just need a blue one to sew up the blessed trinity! Similarly, Mangiadischi Penny portables are seldom found on these shores, so we're grateful to our buddy Maxime (of the utterly fantastic Design and Music From The 60s & 70s) for hooking us up with his spares!  Thanks again, Max! Two domestic Panasonic turntables (including the irritatingly elusive Funnygraph) help to round up this lot!

We aren't above allowing players for inferior formats into our home, either. Please check out the three 8-track players featured—manufactured by Panasonic, Sobynica and Studio 44, respectively. Hell, we even let in a goddamn blue Panasonic cassette player cuz it was just too cute to pass up.

We're big fans of these rounded beauties Panasonic produced in the 70s, and we're saddened by the fact that we're still missing an orange example. Help? Fortunately, we found both of these Zenith portables locally and for cheap ...not too shabby! 
 

Again, we're regrettably aware of the fact that we're missing white and lime green versions of this classic model manufactured by Ford's subsidiary, Philco. At least we can find some solace in the fact that we're the proud owners of the sole blue example—only because we found a horribly yellowed and discolored white set that would've been irrevocably lost if it wasn't for the wonders of made-for-plastic spray paint! The finished version came out surprisingly well, we think!

We certainly saved the biggest for last. Valery found this hulking behemoth lurking on Cleveland's Craigslist and knew we had to have it. As a company best known for its assortment of sensible shoes and underwear, it's hard to believe that this mod television set was produced by none other than JC Penney! Many thanks to Ben for honoring our requests to ship this mofo to us, despite the fact that it weighs a half-ton! 

We're also glad we can finally cross a pair of tulip-based Futura speakers off the ol' wantlist. Same goes for the ball radio (with lucite base) manufactured by Sanyo, a lavender Rolling Tone, RCA's insidiously rare ball calculator and the red/yellow Hot Top radio featured in L'Utopie Du Tout Plastique (as a Yo-Yo Goldor).