Uploaded July 2024 | Updated September 2026, 8 hours ago
This Holiday radio might look like something you've never seen before. Ah, but maybe you have!
What a great looking little portable radio this Holiday is. There's interesting trim and a nameplate in gold. There's more gold too--the handle, the thumbscrew, and even the little dial pointer station indicator. That little arrow isn't just printed on there, it's a tiny piece of actual metal trim. The handle swings down for carrying the radio in your coat pocket, or back for using it as a table stand, or up for carrying the radio around. The handle, as you can see, is much more than just a simple band of metal. This is one deluxe little radio.
Over here on the back we find that it's missing some part of the latch. Access to the chassis is not through the back on a radio like this, but through the front. All you can do from the back is load batteries. And this is a big plus for this design, in the eyes of the radio's maker, because it kept the radio owner's meddling fingers away from the radio's delicate parts. This is the style we saw on earlier radios by Raytheon and by Admiral, both of which had similar latching battery covers.
We see a schematic diagram in here, but there is no model number listed.. here or anywhere on this radio. Four AA batteries power the thing, delivering of course, 6 volts. Looking more closely where that battery cover latch should be, it appears to be not just partly, but entirely missing. Here's what it looks like on a similar radio by the same maker, one called "Solar Hi-Fi" that we looked at in another video, and, spoiler alert, is neither Solar nor hi-fi. So yeah, there's a large sort-of knob on the outside of the battery cover and inside is a brass strip that does the latching. Looking over this so-called "Solar Hi-Fi" radio we see that it is essentially the same radio as the Holiday but has many different trim features, including the very different handle and grille. The knobs appear the same, as well as our little metal pointer for the tuning dial. Just to confuse you thoroughly, here's... another radio, trimmed out with the same style details as the Solar Hi-Fi, but this one bears the Holiday name. So another Holiday. But different. These interchangeable names and styles are part of the fun in collecting these things.
Having a look inside--through the front-- we see an unusual placement of the ferrite antenna bar,.. on the bottom. The large open tuning capacitor helps give a clue about the date of this radio, which I guessed to be 1959 or 1960. That tuning capacitor implies it is probably the earlier date, or even earlier than that.
And we have documentation.. better than my guesses.. for dating this radio. While looking over the offerings from Olympic Radio & Television recently, I came across this 1959 Olympic catalog and, well, there's our Holiday, the fancy version.. as an Olympic model 771. Olympic, having for years sold transistor radios made in the United States, contracted with the Holiday folks for this one, one of their first outsoured radios.. made.. in Japan. We cover this outsourcing story pretty thoroughly on this channel if you're interested in just what happened to the consumer electronics business in the US. 1959 was a key year in that story.
This Holiday radio might look like something you've never seen before. Ah, but maybe you have!
What a great looking little portable radio this Holiday is. There's interesting trim and a nameplate in gold. There's more gold too--the handle, the thumbscrew, and even the little dial pointer station indicator. That little arrow isn't just printed on there, it's a tiny piece of actual metal trim. The handle swings down for carrying the radio in your coat pocket, or back for using it as a table stand, or up for carrying the radio around. The handle, as you can see, is much more than just a simple band of metal. This is one deluxe little radio.
Over here on the back we find that it's missing some part of the latch. Access to the chassis is not through the back on a radio like this, but through the front. All you can do from the back is load batteries. And this is a big plus for this design, in the eyes of the radio's maker, because it kept the radio owner's meddling fingers away from the radio's delicate parts. This is the style we saw on earlier radios by Raytheon and by Admiral, both of which had similar latching battery covers.
We see a schematic diagram in here, but there is no model number listed.. here or anywhere on this radio. Four AA batteries power the thing, delivering of course, 6 volts. Looking more closely where that battery cover latch should be, it appears to be not just partly, but entirely missing. Here's what it looks like on a similar radio by the same maker, one called "Solar Hi-Fi" that we looked at in another video, and, spoiler alert, is neither Solar nor hi-fi. So yeah, there's a large sort-of knob on the outside of the battery cover and inside is a brass strip that does the latching. Looking over this so-called "Solar Hi-Fi" radio we see that it is essentially the same radio as the Holiday but has many different trim features, including the very different handle and grille. The knobs appear the same, as well as our little metal pointer for the tuning dial. Just to confuse you thoroughly, here's... another radio, trimmed out with the same style details as the Solar Hi-Fi, but this one bears the Holiday name. So another Holiday. But different. These interchangeable names and styles are part of the fun in collecting these things.
Having a look inside--through the front-- we see an unusual placement of the ferrite antenna bar,.. on the bottom. The large open tuning capacitor helps give a clue about the date of this radio, which I guessed to be 1959 or 1960. That tuning capacitor implies it is probably the earlier date, or even earlier than that.
And we have documentation.. better than my guesses.. for dating this radio. While looking over the offerings from Olympic Radio & Television recently, I came across this 1959 Olympic catalog and, well, there's our Holiday, the fancy version.. as an Olympic model 771. Olympic, having for years sold transistor radios made in the United States, contracted with the Holiday folks for this one, one of their first outsoured radios.. made.. in Japan. We cover this outsourcing story pretty thoroughly on this channel if you're interested in just what happened to the consumer electronics business in the US. 1959 was a key year in that story.
