I like radios, tape players, speakers, amplifiers from the 60s to 80s,Hope to communicate and learn with enthusiasts from all over the world
Greetings. I was going to ask if you had much choice of equipment back in those days but then I saw your age. About ten years ago there was an EBay seller in China who had a large stack of Sharp GF777Z Boomboxes which I believe were made in China towards the end of that models life. Seeing the prices they go for now I should have bought a few back then, when they were going for about £300 including postage.
I am surprised that you can notice my age, because I am indeed a generation Z, but this does not prevent my love for these equipment. Regarding the Sharp GF777Z, I think this is a rare model that sold in my country and cheaper than abroad. You know that there are many Chinese people who spend high prices to collect various models on eBay. However, in our country, it is even better expensive than eBay,usually twice as it.
From the number of GF777Z s that were being sold from China back then I wondered if they were standard issue for schools or something. When I was at school they were still using Reel to Reel tape recorders, despite the cassette being invented the year I was born ! When I reached your age I was collecting 1950s tube radios, so understand why a younger person might be interested in old audio equipment.
This is not the case at all. In fact, in the 1980s, GF777 was very expensive, and there were only four or five units in a city here. But in the 1990s, a large number of waste electronic products entered our country through legal or illegal means, which led to more GF777s. There is also a saying that some GF777 is completely fake, so many of us later have it
Here are some pictures of an"Assembled in China" one http://www.stereo2go.com/topic/index.php?content_oid=239838246709585398&board_oid=193392314111653340 Apparently there were even some assembled in Nigeria. This sort of thing was usually done to save on import duties.
I think it's not just assembly, some of the parts inside have even been replaced with inferior counterfeit goods. In short, it was a very chaotic period.
Welcome! From my research, China was a huge market and for some reason the GF-777 was the goto home/business portable stereo in the region. I don't have one so I don't know first hand but they were wildly popular, we used to get Chinese Ebay Sellers that seemed to have several of them. I think that Japanese Companies were expanding and they needed local manufacturing to get to that market and they picked some of their most popular boomboxes to get there. You guys ended up with more than anybody but who knows what they put inside. Someday we'll be able to compare the circuit boards but nobody has posted any interior photos yet.
I found the picture in a forum on our side, maybe you can use the translation software to check it out http://www.crystalradio.cn/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=1757365&highlight=%CF%C4%C6%D5777&mobile=2
