TBT…

Strange things found in the back of the cabinet…

Anybody remember these?

Back in the day

Aluminium travel cups that somehow migrated into the house and became the ‘kids’ cups…

And how many of us old farts had one of these?

Back in the day transistor radio

It’s a Sony no less! And I seem to remember it cost something like $4 bucks… AM only…

Comments

TBT… — 34 Comments

  1. I recall my buddy had one of those, same pastel green, in 1965. We listened to the Cubs games on it, and they lost a lot back then. My, how things have changed. Er, uh, wait….

  2. I remember those transsister radios from my childhood, they were compact but had a really solid heft. They were built to last. My aunt’s radio (I cannot recall the make) had a tinny speaker that could really wail out Petula Clark’s song “Down Town”. :^) Just below the threshold of pain.

  3. Still have some of those cups at our cabin, they came with cottage cheese from,”Twin Pines” dairy as I recall.
    Dennis the Librarian Shusher

  4. uh… I’m pretty sure I still have some of those aluminum cups. I know exactly where the pitcher to the set is, at the least.

  5. I worked in small machine shop during the summer of ’71. No I was not a machinist, I was more of an industrial robot. Parts in, parts out, repeat.

    I had a small AM transistor radio in my shirt pocket with an earphone and I think I used it pretty much the whole time I worked there.

    One of the owners of the machine shop had been in the Yugoslavian resistance during the second world war. I am sure most of the stories were true, and I know I would not have wanted to have these people mad at me.

    John in Philly

  6. We had the colorful aluminum tumblers too, although I didn’t know they were supposed to be travel mugs. We drank Kool-Aid out of them each summer, back in the ’50s and ’60s.

    The metal was pretty soft, too: you could dig furrows in them with your canine teeth. Ask me how I know this …

    I had a pocket transistor radio, too; got it in ’63 for my 8th birthday, and the first song I heard was Gerry & the Pacemakers singing “Ferry ‘Cross the Mersey”.

    Enough remember when?

  7. I used to listen to baseball games on my transistor – under the covers, of course, so my parents didn’t know…

  8. Yes, never did like those cups. As a kid they were to cold on the hands and hated the feel of steel on my mouth. I think my dad had that exact radio, in a leather cover.

  9. Vaguely remember the tumblers. Had a transistor radio to listen to ballgames under the covers like every young boy now of a certain age. Have a modern version, Sony, now that’s part of the “storm box”. The fancy-dancey foo-foo weather alert radio eats batteries like there’s no tomorrow, so the little Sony “transistor” radio is the backup.

  10. We have a set of those tumblers in the cabinet for the kids. My radio like that was red and white. We figured out that if you jammed it between the power pole and the ground wire, it would pick up better. My dad had a pink one that was larger and had a handle on top. We listened to a lot of Tiger’s games on that one. Siting under the oak tree in the front yard and drinking ice tea.

  11. We never had the aluminum cups, but plenty of my friends had them.

    My little red radio was made by RCA, AM only.

    BUT….my Mom’s 64 Corvair had a big Sony in it that you could slide out, and use as a portable.

    Had AM, FM, and SW!

    Used to spend many hours at night with my headphones on listening to “The Lew Dean Show” on WRVA.

  12. Brightly colored aluminum cups meant “Grandma’s house!” and the water from her spring was so wonderfully cold when you drank from them. Tang was a special treat from them, too.

    My sister gave me a set for Christmas one year.

  13. The coolest radio I ever owned (and lost)was back in 1961 and it had no battery. Two cords. One with a 1st generation ear-bud and the other cord had a alligator clip that you clipped to medal. In school I ran the two cods down my arm and clipped it to my desk. At nigh clipped it to the finger stop on the dial phone and fell asleep listening to some good ole rock-in-roll. I would love to have another one.

  14. Yep! I think I still have both of those things around here somewhere =0

  15. All- Well, other that SPE, y’all proved you’re as old as I am…LOL

    Thanks, and I hope they brought back some decent memories of your (and my) younger days… 🙂

  16. I can’t drink out of anything else but those classic glasses. Cold water, with ice, my wife takes nothing less. Milk, lemonade, water, all good, so long as in that metal glass.

  17. My first portable radio was about half the size of a cigar box and it was TUBE (2), not transistor. 2 batteries and you could almost see the larger battery suck down as the tube heaters came on. I had to give it up as I couldn’t afford to keep replacing the batteries. Some youth learn the hard way; aye were wun.

  18. Roomie has a set of the aluminum in our glass cupboard!
    My Father had a green one ever-present for his beverage of choice.
    VERY familiar.

    gfa

  19. I remember those. We found a stash of the coleman camper ones in my FIL’s cabinets.

    My kids think transistor radios are a hoot. I remember my bible thumping parents forbade me to ever listen to a radio. One year my Aunt gave me an “Owl” radio for my Bday. I hid it from my parents and at night, would go in my room and listen.

    I know! Such a rebel even back then..lol

  20. Lehman’s still sells those tumblers and the pitcher as well. I want to get a set for myself as some of the happiest times in my life were at my aunt and uncles farm in north central Arkansas, and they had those aluminum tumbler. I remember how flavoraid tasted better from them than it did from the glass tumblers.

  21. Funny, I guess even ironic, you posted your very next blogpost saying you need some and showed pic of a smoking shotgun with the words aroma therapy; yet not one person who commented about those tiny transistor mostly Jap radios (almost all were made in Japan)said anything at all about the aroma that struck them when they opened up the box with one of those radios in it. They had a certain odor, aroma, smell that was not like anything else I had or have ever experienced before or after. It was a good smell regardless of the fact that those little radios, that came only with a single bud ear piece and almost always with a flimsy vinyl case, were about the worst pieces of AM radio junk imaginable. Of course, if you had a 5 transistor radio – you were the king!

    They spawned a boom in the personal electronic business that has not slowed down one iota since they first appeared on the market. I went from one of those to one with FM, to a boom box with cassette player, to home stereo system, to car stereo, to…and just have kept going. Thank the Japs, not for the transistor, but for making more radios with transistors than just about anyone else. Those little Japanese radios were like a gazillion tiny Godzillas unleashed on the USA and not long after that they had a large share of the small electronics market.

    To have one of my original transistor radios today would be groovy. To have one, unopened in the original box and packaging, that would be simply marvelous.

    All the best,
    GB

  22. GB- You’re right, I hadn’t even thought about that! And I’m now of the age that radio/music is white noise due to my hearing loss… I’d hate to think what you’d pay for an original in the original box!!!

  23. Like PH these tumblers meant grandma’s house.
    We got water, tea, grape Kool aid and on Saturday during wrestling they meant soda and popcorn.
    I had the same radio I mowed lawns to buy it.

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