Neat History

From the pages of AmericanHeritage.com



Quote: Next year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the transistor radio, which, like the diminutive electronic component it’s named for, was invented in America. Using smaller solid-state devices in place of vacuum tubes, transistor radios could be scaled down considerably, yet the earliest versions sold for sums well out of proportion to their size. Most cost between $50 and $90 at a time when a new car could be had for less than $3,000.

Marketers banked on the portability of the new sets, and the first one from Japan was billed as a shirt-pocket radio when it arrived here in 1957. Sony tried to disguise the fact that the TR-63 was a bit larger than advertised by giving salesmen shirts with oversized pockets expressly tailored for the product.

The most collectible models, from 1963 and earlier, can often be identified by the triangles at 640 and 1240 kHz on their dials. Based on the civil-defense emblem, these symbols indicated the two frequencies that were to be used for emergency broadcasts in the event of a Soviet attack. End Quote