Japanese Tube Radio

[bgadow]

I wonder what the story was behind Delmonico? I've seen some obviously Japanese stuff with their name; this summer I sold a German Korting Radio, along the lines of the one pictured here, but with the Delmonico nameplate.

[crooner]

Delmonico International was a distributor located in NYC. They were the first to market transistor radios for Sony back in the mid 50s. They had a fallout with Akio Morita and Sony Corporation Of America was founded around 1959 or 1960 to distribute Sony products, except the tape recorders, mikes and other recording equipment that were sold exclusively by Superscope.

Delmonico then signed an agreement with JVC or Japan Victor Company to distribute their radios, consoles and early videotape equipment.

Delmonico also had an agreement with Korting and sold their radios in the US. At some point Korting went bankrupt and perhaps there was still customer demand for this kind of radio.

My guess is that Delmonico wanted a similar German style receiver and comissioned their manufacture to JVC.

The Japanese copied the Korting design in cosmetics and perhaps in the pushbutton assembly. The electronics were totally different, and typical of that era's Japanese goods. It was AC-DC transformerless, unlike the German radios that had power transformers.

In all, a very interesting set, and not very appreciated today which is a pity for I think the Japanese had a nice product.