Genuine Plastic Radios of the Mid-Century

Rating:
Summary: Turn on and tune in to this book
Review: If you collect mid-century plastic radios you should own this book. Sixty-six manufacturers are represented with 450 color photos, the popular companies, such as Crosley, GE, Motorola, RCA and Zenith each have several models shown.

Besides a photo of the radio there are plenty of close-ups of tuning knobs, speaker grills, frequency ranges and each maker has a close-up of their logo. Also included are some period ads from the fifties.

Page 176 shows the front of a Trav-ler 5022 from 1950 and on the facing page is a shot of the back of the set. What a contrast, while the front is the best the marketing/design folk could come up with the back shows a clutter of wires, batteries and evidence of cheap mass production.

Looking at the design of the various models it becomes clear that as these radios all do the same thing it became important to sell the product on other (non-existant) virtues. The names (Wide-fi, Transitone) reflect high technology, big tuning knobs reflect scientific precision, some makers logos are heraldic reflecting snob values, the plastic cases were in bright eye-catching colors.

I think it would have helped if the dimensions of the sets had been included and the photography is very bland with the radios set against insipid backgrounds. Radios can look good, have a look at Philip Collins 'Radios:The Golden Age' and 'Radios Redux', dozens of beautiful shots mostly against a black background which make the radios jump out from the page.

This is a book though that any serious collector and those interested in fifties popoular culture and product design should have.