Show us your vintage cassettes!

[restorer-john]

It would seem TDK knew there were collectors out there willing to purchase whatever, as long as it had different packaging. Their TDK! line seemed to address this market well. Here are some of my TDK! cassettes

I had seen the CDing range, but figured they were flogging the dying horse by then, but I've never seen the "If" range. They are rather cool- look like Japanese home market style packaging, with all that Jinglish are they?

In my storeroom, I have a ton of Fuji's 90s range, all NOS sealed. A local catering to the Japanese duty free store must have dumped them when they went bust and I picked up huge box of for $5. Much of them are in the slimpack style case and many have Japanese writing all over them. Several 10 pack cartons etc.

I'll have to dig them out sometime and post some pics.

 

[digicidal]

OMG, I had several of those MA-XG 90's back in the day... I think with my Tower Records employee discount they ran me nearly $6 ea. at the time - why didn't I grab a few cases to sit in the back of the closet!

 

[bennetng]

CDing

Mine:

 

[House de Kris]

I had seen the CDing range, but figured they were flogging the dying horse by then, but I've never seen the "If" range. They are rather cool- look like Japanese home market style packaging, with all that Jinglish are they?

Yes, I lived in Japan in the late 80s/early 90s. There was a CD rental shop near a train station that I transferred at on my daily commute. I'd stop in every day and return two CDs and pick up two more. The only thing they sold there were cassettes (to copy the CDs you rent). I'd buy a bunch of varying quality blanks at various lengths, and my nighttime activity was to sample the music, determine a worthy blank, and copy away. Relatively inexpensive way to build up a library of the local music, at the time.

Back on track to this thread, here's some mid-70s TDK tapes:

And, an early 70s ED.

To close out the 'Dynamic' line, everyone's favorite, the OD....

 

[gvl]

I bet most of you guys haven't seen this one.

 

[gvl]

This was the last one I bought at Tower Records, RIP, but never used. It wasn't cheap. Now they seem to sell for 3 digits on ebay. I dumped a hundred or so of my Type 1 cassette into trash at some point, wasn't an easy decision easy but they were mostly run of the mill TDKs and the like, so no big regrets.

 

[House de Kris]

Cool MK-60-1 tape. What country did that come from?

I never had too many Sony tapes. Here's all I got:

 

[House de Kris]

Oh yeah, one more Sony. Their "Canvas Window" cassette. Came with a artwork transfer kit and a template to place such artwork neatly on the canvas. Whatever...

 

[gvl]

Cool MK-60-1 tape. What country did that come from?

That's a Soviet era USSR made jewel, 80s I think. Rumors were it was made on the equipment also used for sand paper manufacturing as using these exclusively would eat through the tape heads pretty quickly. Hard alloy heads only arrived there in the mid 80s, if memory serves.

 

[MRC01]

Here's a blast from the past:
Clockwise from upper right:
TDK SA-X, their consumer grade high end chrome tape. I used these for years, comparable to the Maxell XL-IIS.
TDK MAX-G, the best cassette tape they made. Solid aluminum case, very nice to handle and great sound quality. Way too expensive, but what the heck I had to have at least 1.
BASF Reference II Master, a commercial cassette tape. My old deck performed best with this, measuring from 40 Hz to 18 kHz +/- 1 dB, no joke. These weren't too expensive and had the best sound I ever heard on cassette tape.
TDK SM-X90, a commercial version of their SA-X. Similar good sound quality, with a better made more durable housing.

 

[gvl]

I can't believe no-one has posted the TDK MA-R90; it's all I used to buy. Of course they go for crazy money now. I'm sure I threw away dozens of them many, many years ago.

Martin

I now understand the origins of this mysterious Soviet knock-off that you could only get bundled with one particular tape-deck.

Despite being a TYPEII the tape-type detection notches were considered to be an unnecessary luxury.

 

[bigx5murf]

Just paid $8 for these

 

[restorer-john]

Just paid $8 for theseView attachment 52999

Bargain!

 

[Chrispy]

Vintage cassette just strikes me as an oxymoron.

 

[bigx5murf]

Got these for $4 today

 

[Helicopter]

These Memorex used to be my favorites for boom box mix tapes, because they were cheap and had a rad color scheme. I got the Maxell tapes because now I record on a Nakamichi Dr 10. Just learned on this thread the long tapes are thin. I guess I won't be seeking those over the shorter ones now.

 

[restorer-john]

I still look at sealed cassettes and almost drool. They just look so good. Maybe it is the mental pathways forged when I was young with music, recording and mates, cassettes in the car etc.

I know they are old in real terms, but they still look totally awesome to me.

 

[Silly Valley]

Brings back memories...fun thread.

Now, show me the hardware. Preferably a deck you still own.

 

[restorer-john]

Now, show me the hardware. Preferably a deck you still own.

I have a lot of decks, but that's for another thread.

 

[Silly Valley]

I wonder of the youngsters even know what a deck is?