FIRST shirt-pocket transistor radio from NEC, 1959 Nippon Electric, made in Japan

Описание: Nothing on this radio is quite like anything else on any other radio.

What we've got here is the first shirt-pocket size radio from the Nippon Electric Company, NEC. It's thought to be from late 1958, 1959 or even early 1960. I'm going with 1959. From the look of it inside, it's either that or earlier.

The roots of NEC go back to 1899. I know. 1899. NEC first got into the telephone business, one of the highest hi-tech things going in that era. Early on, they struck up a partnership with the American electronics pioneer, Western Electric, a company founded in 1869. I know. 1869. Now when I learned about this partnership, I had a bit of an ah-ha moment. In the back of my mind I always had some inkling of a relationship between these two companies. I now realize that that inkling came from the graphics. I tend to feature graphics on this channel--logos and things, I guess for this reason: they interest me, and they help to tell the story. Now maybe this similarity doesn't really tell us anything. Maybe ALL the companies back then that were into what we now call "tech" had logos that looked like lightning bolts. I don't know. I'm... not THAT old.

Extending their interests in electronic communications, NEC got into radio in the 1920s, first in the broadcasting end of things, making broadcasting equipment and later branching out into making receivers.

Blithely skipping over a couple of world wars and a lot of other really unpleasant things, we find ourselves in 1959 admiring this, NEC's first shirt-pocket-size radio. Now when I first started collecting transistor radios, I saw this model pictured in some service literature--a small, black & white picture. Woah!, says I. What is this? And I had the same reaction when I, eventually, came across one of the actual radios. It's a radio that's really quite different from all others. Love it or hate it, it's something special, that's for sure. But how could you hate it? It gets an A for effort, at least. That clear plastic panel... the way the NEC letters are spelled out vertically on that metal strip, N-E-C, and the rest of the words are on the clear plastic panel, ippon lectric ompany ... the red knob, the tuning arrow, the word "on"... the word SIX. ...the grille. They're all unique. And over on the back, the ventilation slots are unique too. Yes, I guess I'm a fan.

Inside, the NT-61 is obviously early with that big speaker magnet and those unique cylindrically-shaped IF cans. NEC made their own semiconductors and those are NEC transistors in there--the three black, oval-shaped ones uniquely lined up along the bar antenna at the top. The other three transistors, the silver cylindrical ones are marked, I was surprised to learn when I examined them up close,... Sony. They're Sonys. I didn't see that coming.

Though the radio was only available in this tan color, as far as we know, it came in a colorful box. It's a real period piece of a box. It's not very plush inside but it does have ribbons and that's a nice touch. The soft, thin leather case is still rolled up and tied up with a ribbon over on the left side. A plastic sleeve holds the accompanying papers, and a nice polishing cloth. We see such cloths included with many of the earliest transistor radios from Japan, often with this zig zag edge as if cut with pinking shears, like we see here.

It's hard to read this line of type on the cover of the instruction booklet, under the picture of the radio, but it says, "How to Operate It." This booklet is no small thing. It's 8 pages and printed in three colors. It's a pretty good translation, generally. Too good to be hilarious, but still mildly amusing in places. Under "installing the battery" it says "When inserting the battery into the radio, fix Eveready Type No. 216 or equivalent by snapping it."

NEC's second transistor radio was this one, the NT-620 We looked at it in another video along with the Magnavox version of it that NEC made. As you can see, it's a good looker, but there's really nothing from NEC, or anyone else, that quite compares to NEC's first shirt-pocket radio, this NT-61.