1957 Silvertone 8204/8206
Coat pocket radio, thermoplastic cabinet
6 1/4 x 3 x 1 1/2 inches / 159 x 76 x 38 mm
Five transistors (Sylvania 2N212, 2N35, 2 x 2N94, GE 2N321)
One tubular 9-volt battery
Manufactured by Arvin, USA
Distributed by Sears, USA
The first Silvertone-marketed "pocket" transistor radio, and the first made for Sears by Arvin. But before this came the first Silvertone transistor radio of any kind, the Silvertone 7228, a tabletop transistor radio radio made for Sears by Warwick Electronics (see photo below). As collector Bernie Myers has noted in an email to me, the 7228 first appeared in the 1956 Fall & Winter Sears catalog, while this 8204/8206 pocket radio first appeared in the following year's catalog.
Arvin routinely assigned different model numbers to different cabinet colors for the same radio, for both Arvin and Silvertone sets. Here, it looks like the 8204 model number was for units that came in either black or gray, and the 8206 was for "coral".
|
