Transistor Radios Around the World

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Before '54 --- North America --- Western Europe --- Japan and Pacific --- East Bloc and USSR


1957 Bulova 620 "Comet"

Coat pocket / small portable radio, thermoplastic cabinet
6 1/8 x 3 1/8 x 1 7/8 inches / 156 x 79 x 47.6 mm
Five transistors (Raytheon: CK852, 2N48A, 2N382, 2N483, 2N631)
One 9-volt battery
Distributed by Bulova Watch Corp.; Woodside, New York

Certainly one of the most memorably "Fifties-looking" transistor radios of its time.

Various print and web sources show the Bulova 620 as having either four or five transistors — in this example there are five, all made by Raytheon: four are top hats, and one (CK852) is a blue oval.

Bulova 620

Bulova 620 "Comet"


Bulova 620

chassis — click on the photo for a larger image


Bulova 620

inside back cover

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from the 1999 M31 site's Bulova 620 "Comet" page:

One of the classic '50s transistor radio designs. Bulova's own name, "Comet", describes the cabinet face well enough, and "parabola" would be the only term more accurate in description -- but somehow the '50s word "boomerang" has erroneously become stuck to this radio, and no matter how hard the Bulova Comet rejects the term, it just keeps coming back...



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