Uploaded May 2025 | Updated September 2026, 4 hours ago
We've looked at many collectible radios on this channel that are simply gorgeous. Well, today we're going to look at a great many more that simply aren't--including the ugliest radio.. of all time. And we're going to talk about the history of collecting transistor radios.
Yes, there's a history,.. and I was there. In those early days of collecting these radios, there were no pictures of them to be found anywhere. There were no collector books about them. And of course, no internet. I didn't just stumble across one and say, oh this is interesting--I should collect these. No, the idea just floated into my head one day that it would be fun to have the very first transistor radio, which I assumed would be a Sony. Turns out, it wasn't a Sony. I began looking in pawn shops and thrift stores and found nothing. People just thought they were worthless and didn't even try to offer them for sale. So I began cultivating sources any way I could--by talking to sellers at flea markets and antique stores and letting them know I'd pay actual money for these radios. "Those?," they'd sometimes say. "Who'd want those?" To which I could only answer that yes, I am an idiot and yes, I want THOSE. Where these sellers MIGHT have dismissed me as a kook, the way the pawn shops and thrift stores did, the flea market sellers were at the time witnessing a POG frenzy with Beanie Babies just around the corner--so it seemed to them that the collector world had gone mad. So if this guy (me) wants some worthless old transistor radio, and is willing to pay, well, why not? So,... they'd take my phone number. And after many of those conversations, I began to get calls from these sources. Those calls would start something like this: "Hey, do you still want those little radios? I found you a sweet one." Now since they still had no understanding of why I wanted them, they had no idea what would make one "sweet," but I'd listen to their description and--intrigued by the mystery of it, if nothing else--I'd make arrangements to go and see it, or send them money and hope for a great radio by return mail.
What you're looking at are the kinds of radios I usually got. In fact, these are some of the actual radios I actually got in the mail. Back then, I thought it was a reasonable gamble to take a chance on a radio I hadn't seen.
I had no idea how many blah radios there were. I didn't know what the ratio of blah to good was and so I couldn't assess what the chances were that I was just wasting my money. As you can probably tell, I did waste money.
I recall that I had naively estimated a bad-to-good ratio of two-to-one, and so thought that if I bought three radios sight unseen, at least one would be a good one. Also, back then I figured there probably weren't more than 50 different transistor radio models ever made. So, on both accounts, I was wayyy off.
I tried to improve my odds by having sellers send me pictures of radios they'd found. But this met a certain resistance. Because remember, not only was there no internet, there were no camera phones either. And as popular as film cameras were, antique dealers never seemed to have one. And it cost money for film and developing. About the best I could manage was to get a seller to lay a radio face down on a xerox machine and mail me the copy. I couldn't see much with that, but I could see if I recognized the radio and if it had potential or was just hopeless. But most of the time, sellers sensed my eager craving and refused to send me anything and instead just said, "Well, do you want it or not? You know, other people are asking for these"... They played me like a violin.
And so the postal service began leaving boxes on my doorstep containing these mystery radios. I'd open that box with hopes high, and then, well, disappointment. And that's my complaint here with these radios: not that they are plain or bland or ugly or boring. I can forgive all that. What I can't forgive is that they disappointed me. Even now, when I see these radios I acquired that way, I feel that same disappointment. But I still keep them and I still value them as part of my collection. Not the BEST part, obviously, but still a part. I've learned from them.. and.. every now and then I see in one of these disappointments something I hadn't noticed. Some spark of inspired design, some attitude. Here in this Juliette--that I showed at the beginning of this video and perhaps rashly called ugly--what I see most is... verve. This radio is just trying SO HARD to be liked, how can I fault it for disappointing me?
As you see, we have here a profoundly ridiculous phony alligator skin, and that's a treat for sure. And that is paired with a thick chrome metal front that makes the radio much too heavy to carry in a shirt-pocket. If you bent over, it would fall out. And break your foot. In addition to that, the radio features 14 transistors inside of it, most of which probably add nothing whatever to the radio's performance...
We've looked at many collectible radios on this channel that are simply gorgeous. Well, today we're going to look at a great many more that simply aren't--including the ugliest radio.. of all time. And we're going to talk about the history of collecting transistor radios.
Yes, there's a history,.. and I was there. In those early days of collecting these radios, there were no pictures of them to be found anywhere. There were no collector books about them. And of course, no internet. I didn't just stumble across one and say, oh this is interesting--I should collect these. No, the idea just floated into my head one day that it would be fun to have the very first transistor radio, which I assumed would be a Sony. Turns out, it wasn't a Sony. I began looking in pawn shops and thrift stores and found nothing. People just thought they were worthless and didn't even try to offer them for sale. So I began cultivating sources any way I could--by talking to sellers at flea markets and antique stores and letting them know I'd pay actual money for these radios. "Those?," they'd sometimes say. "Who'd want those?" To which I could only answer that yes, I am an idiot and yes, I want THOSE. Where these sellers MIGHT have dismissed me as a kook, the way the pawn shops and thrift stores did, the flea market sellers were at the time witnessing a POG frenzy with Beanie Babies just around the corner--so it seemed to them that the collector world had gone mad. So if this guy (me) wants some worthless old transistor radio, and is willing to pay, well, why not? So,... they'd take my phone number. And after many of those conversations, I began to get calls from these sources. Those calls would start something like this: "Hey, do you still want those little radios? I found you a sweet one." Now since they still had no understanding of why I wanted them, they had no idea what would make one "sweet," but I'd listen to their description and--intrigued by the mystery of it, if nothing else--I'd make arrangements to go and see it, or send them money and hope for a great radio by return mail.
What you're looking at are the kinds of radios I usually got. In fact, these are some of the actual radios I actually got in the mail. Back then, I thought it was a reasonable gamble to take a chance on a radio I hadn't seen.
I had no idea how many blah radios there were. I didn't know what the ratio of blah to good was and so I couldn't assess what the chances were that I was just wasting my money. As you can probably tell, I did waste money.
I recall that I had naively estimated a bad-to-good ratio of two-to-one, and so thought that if I bought three radios sight unseen, at least one would be a good one. Also, back then I figured there probably weren't more than 50 different transistor radio models ever made. So, on both accounts, I was wayyy off.
I tried to improve my odds by having sellers send me pictures of radios they'd found. But this met a certain resistance. Because remember, not only was there no internet, there were no camera phones either. And as popular as film cameras were, antique dealers never seemed to have one. And it cost money for film and developing. About the best I could manage was to get a seller to lay a radio face down on a xerox machine and mail me the copy. I couldn't see much with that, but I could see if I recognized the radio and if it had potential or was just hopeless. But most of the time, sellers sensed my eager craving and refused to send me anything and instead just said, "Well, do you want it or not? You know, other people are asking for these"... They played me like a violin.
And so the postal service began leaving boxes on my doorstep containing these mystery radios. I'd open that box with hopes high, and then, well, disappointment. And that's my complaint here with these radios: not that they are plain or bland or ugly or boring. I can forgive all that. What I can't forgive is that they disappointed me. Even now, when I see these radios I acquired that way, I feel that same disappointment. But I still keep them and I still value them as part of my collection. Not the BEST part, obviously, but still a part. I've learned from them.. and.. every now and then I see in one of these disappointments something I hadn't noticed. Some spark of inspired design, some attitude. Here in this Juliette--that I showed at the beginning of this video and perhaps rashly called ugly--what I see most is... verve. This radio is just trying SO HARD to be liked, how can I fault it for disappointing me?
As you see, we have here a profoundly ridiculous phony alligator skin, and that's a treat for sure. And that is paired with a thick chrome metal front that makes the radio much too heavy to carry in a shirt-pocket. If you bent over, it would fall out. And break your foot. In addition to that, the radio features 14 transistors inside of it, most of which probably add nothing whatever to the radio's performance...
