Found this weird cassette player and I need help identifying it. It's really heavy, and it seems pretty old. I don't know how to work it because there's no buttons or anything. The battery pack is really weird, you put all the batteries in a separate compartment that you then insert into the player. Also to open the door you pull out this little tab and twist it, which is also pretty interesting. Any help would be appreciated
Hi @moose , thanks for sharing! I have no clue where to start looking (for clues). The battery tray is not unusual by the way, check for instance the WM-D6 and D6C battery holder with detachable battery cover. Also some Discman portables have a similar feature.
If you zoom in on the picture with the battery tray empty, it says its a Gray Model LP/D made in Japan by JVC. I did a quick search on google but didn't find anything, though I'm sure someone will find something. I'm thinking its some kind of dicta-phone, as it has a Telephone input on the side, so maybe to record phone conversations
If I had to guess I'd say LP = "long play" and D = "dictation," it looks like the slider changes the speed and the rotary dial changes the pitch (fine tune the speed). The mic for a lot of old recorders had an on/off switch as well. Neat find, it looks early 60's before compact cassette was popular, who knows what the tape is. You'd have to do some digging on worldradiohistory.com to find info.
@moose: can you provide a picture of just the compartment? I can’t zoom in on my phone, the picture gets grainy very quickly.