Twelve or thirteen years ago I began taking more of an interest in early European transistor radios — and because I currently live in a post-Communist country (Slovakia, part of the former Czechoslovakia), I also started searching out what early sets I could find from former Soviet and east European countries — during that time I've managed to get several dozen radios off of Russian and eastern European auction sites.
Transistor radios from the East Bloc are historically significant and certainly worth collecting in order to preserve the history that surrounded them at the time, a Cold War world sharply divided into East and West and remaining so until the fall of Soviet Communism many years later.
My earlier website, The M31 Galaxy of Transistor Radios, was made in the late 1990s — Here, I wanted to make a new site, one showing these new European finds of mine, East and West, as well as my favorite US and Japanese transistor radios that I still have in my collection. Together, these four regions cover most of the world where early transistor radios were produced, so I named this site, "Transistor Radios Around the World" — it also has a kind of '50s retro sound to its name....
If you're wondering why I have few examples of early Sonys and so on, the answer is basic pocketbook economics: my money is limited, so either I could own a half-dozen or so of these ultra-expensive radios, or I can own several hundred radios that display as a group the broad history and geography of transistor radio design, production, and marketing — for better or worse, I've chosen to go broad, but I certainly wish I had the cash to do both!
Likewise, several important 1970s European radios are not shown here (Italian Brionvegas, Danish Bang & Olufson Beolits, etc.) — and, well, I just don't care that much for '70s designs, at least not at the prices they command, and for me the 1970s also are just a bit too far away from the 1950s and too close to today.
I've been living in Bratislava, Slovakia since 2004 with my wife, Milena Pribis, and while living here we've acquired two dogs, three cats and five birds. Before moving here, we lived in the Boston, Massachusetts area for about 25 years. I earn a small bit of money here teaching English as a Second Language.
I hope you'll find this site fun, interesting and useful. If you feel like commenting or have a question, please email me at worldtransistors@gmail.com
