Vintage Radios

Vintage Radios

Not only does owning a vintage radio bring back some nostalgia for yesteryear, it is a great conversation piece to have in your family room, living room or game room. You can pair your vintage radio with other vintage electronics, such as amplifiers and guitars, or vintage televisions. Or, you can display the vintage radio all by itself, hoping to someday catch a re-broadcast of Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds.”

Radios have been popular for decades, so there are many different styles to choose from as you’re considering vintage radios. Styles from from 1920s through 1940s are from the pre-transistor era and have a bit of art deco styling to them. Essentially, as you hear the term “vintage radio,” these pieces are typically what comes to mind, and are the pieces families used to gather around to listen to broadcasts before television was invented. There are many of these models still in existence and still working.

In the 1950s and 1960s, transistor radios were introduced. Many of these units still resemble their 1930s and ‘40s predecessors, with art deco styling made of Bakelite, wood or other durable materials. Many of these models are still in working order as well and if you have a model that needs a bit of a fix, replacement parts are widely available for these radios. You can easily search for vacuum tubes or other parts for a simple fix.

The 1980s brought the advent of boomboxes, and these are still being manufactured today, as cassette tapes are enjoying a resurgence of popularity. Large, sonorous boomboxes like the one from the movie “Say Anything” are still widely available - you’ll just need some D batteries to go along with them. Look for double or single deck boomboxes, with attached or detachable speakers.

Through the years, there have been many popular radio brands, with Sharp and RCA having some of the older models. Look for other popular and familiar brands of vintage radios such as Sanyo, Blaupunkt, Sony, Panasonic, Toshiba and Pioneer.