Uploaded March 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Shopping for transistor radios in 1959 or 1960 America, you could buy this nice little radio from NEC--a brand you never heard of... or this similar, but plainer-looking radio from Magnavox, a brand with which you were familiar. What to do?
Choose either one. You could buy either one and you were going to get the NEC. NEC, the Nippon Electric Company, made them both.
Magnavox presumably knew how to make transistor radios. Their previous American-made models were presumably made by them. But like a lot of American brands around 1960, they found it cheaper and easier to contract with manufacturers in the far east to produce their goods for them. You don't often get to see side-by-side versions of such products as produced by the maker under their own name, and as produced under contract for an American brand.
Obvious stylistic differences include the more deluxe embossed grille on the NEC, as opposed to the Magnavox's more plain grille. And there's what engineering-types will call the escutcheon, this area where the knobs and dial window are. The Magnavox escutcheon is a rather simple piece of metal. But it's not just open, though, there's an inset piece of clear plastic in the window opening. The NEC, on the other hand, has a far more attractive--in my opinion--dial window that features the technique of underpainted clear plastic in which the brand name appears and in which appears a large "6," indicating the number of transistors.
You can see in this side view that these plastic cabinets are not at all the same... though the two radios are about the same depth. On the NEC the front is shallower and the back deeper than on the Magnavox. And turning to the back we see that the info there that NEC has to say is molded into the plastic while the Magnavox has a nice little inset plate. The back of the Magnavox, however, is not held on with a screw as is the NEC's, but is secured solely by four little plastic tabs in the typical fashion of the later, less expensive transistor radios.
There is one other way, externally, that the NEC is a bit more deluxe and that is in the lettering below the grille. It says there "All Transistor" and it does so in molded-in letters that are finished in gold paint. This is a nice look I've talked about in other videos and that was just about to go extinct in consumer product design at the time. The Magnavox has its brand name in this area--below the grille--and as you can see it has not aged well but is hardly visible. It would have been a bright gold when the radio was new but because the lettering was applied with stamping rather than molded in, a few trips in and out of a leather case would have worn it off. Now if you're going to skimp, the last place you want to skimp is your branding.
The takeaway here in this comparison is that in almost every difference between these models you can see that Magnavox's interest was in... cost-cutting. And of course the very fact that they outsourced this radio to a Japanese company in the first place...is all about cost-cutting. Here they were, in the middle of one of the hottest fads in the 20th century, and all they can think about is offshoring production and cutting costs? OK, so where did it get them. Today they are a brand name, nothing more. No plants, no R&D department... they are a brand name that belongs to the Dutch company Philips, who licenses the Magnavox name out to Funai Electric of Japan to put on TVs that old people can find at Costco or WalMart and go, "Oh look, a Magnavox!" And where is NEC today? Doing just fine, last I heard. 27 billion dollars in annual revenue, 114,714 employees.
I like looking at the owner's manuals for these little radios. Here in the Magnavox's is the typical stuff, a few words extolling the virtues of the printed circuit, and some talk of what a terrific advancement the transistor was over tube technology. When it comes to the actual operating instructions, there's not much to say. Turn it on. Tune it. Change the battery. And the Warranty is on the back. The instructions for the NEC--which I don't have--may well be more interesting in that they may have some funny translation errors and stylistic quirks that amuse collectors. But the instructions for the Magnavox Pocket Mate are clearly not a translation but originated in the United States--even if those words are the only thing in this entire package that did.
Magnavox's relationship with NEC continued on with other radios, and we'll look at them in other videos.
So, it's 1960 and you're looking for a little radio like this. Assuming both of these radios are a roughly similar retail price, which one would you choose?
Shopping for transistor radios in 1959 or 1960 America, you could buy this nice little radio from NEC--a brand you never heard of... or this similar, but plainer-looking radio from Magnavox, a brand with which you were familiar. What to do?
Choose either one. You could buy either one and you were going to get the NEC. NEC, the Nippon Electric Company, made them both.
Magnavox presumably knew how to make transistor radios. Their previous American-made models were presumably made by them. But like a lot of American brands around 1960, they found it cheaper and easier to contract with manufacturers in the far east to produce their goods for them. You don't often get to see side-by-side versions of such products as produced by the maker under their own name, and as produced under contract for an American brand.
Obvious stylistic differences include the more deluxe embossed grille on the NEC, as opposed to the Magnavox's more plain grille. And there's what engineering-types will call the escutcheon, this area where the knobs and dial window are. The Magnavox escutcheon is a rather simple piece of metal. But it's not just open, though, there's an inset piece of clear plastic in the window opening. The NEC, on the other hand, has a far more attractive--in my opinion--dial window that features the technique of underpainted clear plastic in which the brand name appears and in which appears a large "6," indicating the number of transistors.
You can see in this side view that these plastic cabinets are not at all the same... though the two radios are about the same depth. On the NEC the front is shallower and the back deeper than on the Magnavox. And turning to the back we see that the info there that NEC has to say is molded into the plastic while the Magnavox has a nice little inset plate. The back of the Magnavox, however, is not held on with a screw as is the NEC's, but is secured solely by four little plastic tabs in the typical fashion of the later, less expensive transistor radios.
There is one other way, externally, that the NEC is a bit more deluxe and that is in the lettering below the grille. It says there "All Transistor" and it does so in molded-in letters that are finished in gold paint. This is a nice look I've talked about in other videos and that was just about to go extinct in consumer product design at the time. The Magnavox has its brand name in this area--below the grille--and as you can see it has not aged well but is hardly visible. It would have been a bright gold when the radio was new but because the lettering was applied with stamping rather than molded in, a few trips in and out of a leather case would have worn it off. Now if you're going to skimp, the last place you want to skimp is your branding.
The takeaway here in this comparison is that in almost every difference between these models you can see that Magnavox's interest was in... cost-cutting. And of course the very fact that they outsourced this radio to a Japanese company in the first place...is all about cost-cutting. Here they were, in the middle of one of the hottest fads in the 20th century, and all they can think about is offshoring production and cutting costs? OK, so where did it get them. Today they are a brand name, nothing more. No plants, no R&D department... they are a brand name that belongs to the Dutch company Philips, who licenses the Magnavox name out to Funai Electric of Japan to put on TVs that old people can find at Costco or WalMart and go, "Oh look, a Magnavox!" And where is NEC today? Doing just fine, last I heard. 27 billion dollars in annual revenue, 114,714 employees.
I like looking at the owner's manuals for these little radios. Here in the Magnavox's is the typical stuff, a few words extolling the virtues of the printed circuit, and some talk of what a terrific advancement the transistor was over tube technology. When it comes to the actual operating instructions, there's not much to say. Turn it on. Tune it. Change the battery. And the Warranty is on the back. The instructions for the NEC--which I don't have--may well be more interesting in that they may have some funny translation errors and stylistic quirks that amuse collectors. But the instructions for the Magnavox Pocket Mate are clearly not a translation but originated in the United States--even if those words are the only thing in this entire package that did.
Magnavox's relationship with NEC continued on with other radios, and we'll look at them in other videos.
So, it's 1960 and you're looking for a little radio like this. Assuming both of these radios are a roughly similar retail price, which one would you choose?
