At the moment on Goofish, China, for Aiwa HS-J9/09/600 for sale, there are approximately these numbers and average prices (Yen) by color: Black: 18 (3380) Silver: 23 (2300) Red: 15 (3850) Blue: 5 (5300) Pink: 2 (3400) Green: 0 On Buyee, Japan, there are: Black: 3 Silver: 2 Red: 1 On eBay, mostly the US, there are: Black: 12 Silver: 5 Red: 1 Interesting that: - there are such market differences - China is really into these devices - they all came from Japan - the Chinese market seems to value the black more than the silver. - eBay has a preponderance of black ones - blue and pink are very rare - green is exceedingly rare - the average blue one for sale in China will cost about $800 as is.
From what I've seen online, the black seems to be the most common overall. Regarding why Chinese value black more than the silver could be some sellers mistake demand with supply, thinking if supply is the highest it must have the highest demand (although would expect them to think the opposite). 340USD vs 500USD is a significant difference, higher than I would expect. However Goofish in general is a relatively expensive market when it comes to walkmans. Their only advantage is stock. As a sidenote, prices on goofish are in Chinese yuan (CNY), not yen (JPY). It's a bit misleading as the symbol looks the same as yen. 100 CNY = 14.81USD, while 100 JPY = 0.63USD. The yuan has significantly higher value (23.5x higher) than the Japanese yen. I was first confused by this myself, as some prices that seemed really low (if they were to be in yen) were in fact high. This is an issue only if scrolling directly on goofish.com, proxies like SuperBuy will do the conversion automatically. What do you mean by "They all came from Japan" ? This isn't a JDM-only model.
Thanks for the currency correction. I meant that these particular Aiwa models were made in Japan and so must have come from Japan one way or another. Chinese buyers must have sources in Japan besides Buyee, that I wish I knew about. To avoid the additional shipping, middlemen and the inevitable cost increase that results. On the other hand it's great that as a result of this trade so many parts are being made in China for walkmen. I don't buy nice units so the higher prices don't affect me. Goofish has reasonable availability of lower priced lower quality units. With the recent purchase of a couple of ~$15 J36's for parts for J9's (such as motors, earphone jacks and volume controls) I hope to have made my last purchases of personal cassette players.
Japan employes a lot of Chinese Workers, they might be sending the units back home. I've looked at Chinese Auction Sites over the years and seen equipment go for 2-3x what it sells for here, they weren't in on the golden age of audio but they're catching up. In the old days of the forum, ARKAY out of Hong Kong, used to talk about containers of vintage electronics being shipped out of the country and he was finding some really nice equipment, some right before the container doors were being shut. We were pretty much stuck with black, silver or gray audio, the JDM had all kinds of colors, even component stereos came in some funky-fresh colors. Having smaller living quarters in Japan meant that old equipment was tossed out when not in use, unlike the USA where nearly everyone has a Walkman that's been stashed away for decades. Sadly when I look around my office stash, there's very little bright color units.
I now have J9/09/600 in black, silver, red, blue and green. I think the blue is the most attractive. The silver is very whiteish and I haven't been able to find silver touchup paint that light. I don't care for the green, it's more like turquoise. A nice metallic forest green would be spectacular. And I'm not looking for a pink one since I find it unattractive. All the colors except the black are metallic. This results in them looking really nice, but complicates touching up the paint. Stenciled lettering all over them doesn't help fix the paint either. But that's what I get for buying lower end units. I should post a picture of my accumulation soon. (Not a collection because I insist I'm not collecting them.)
Something else that also plays into it is plastic molding was reletively young in the 70's and 80's. Consumer electronics and cars were embracing it fully but some colors were a total fail with strength and the ability to withstand UV rays. Some of those early 80's car interiors didn't last long and faded fast along with plastic dust from the surface. If I remember my 80's plastics 101 class, alot of black plastics had carbon black added which colored and strengthened it, it was a cheap additive and black audio products were getting popular.
Now, all the colors are fun and as a collector, I try to add colored pieces when I can find them, and the price is right. But back in the day, when I was going to own just one walkman, and one boombox as a 20-something in Seattle, I wouldn't have wanted a color. Silver or black was fine. Even the yellow sport Walkman would have been to garish.
In 1964 I did a report on the relatively new innovation of plastic, for my science class at school. I still have the document. Plastic was replacing bakelite then. It was expensive to make molds, so there wasn't the vast array of plastic products then. The quality of early plastic would explain why the back panels of these Aiwas, except maybe the black and silver, typically have a lot of small pits in the surface. They can't be sanded out because the graphics are lost. The only way to fix them is multiple coats of clear coat, smoothed by block sanding and polished. But then the early version has the raised belt clip fittings that get in the way of sanding and polishing. By hand, anyway. I applied automotive clear protective film to the back panel of one. The result was satisfactory but not perfect. As for my blue and green ones, I only bought them because they were in such poor shape they didn't cost a lot.
My plastics prof said Armor All does help with older plastics, something about it getting into those pits and stabilizing them. I know in the 80's, it was huge for car collectors although they didn't like the wet look sheen and they went with Simple Green for car shows. I have no idea what is popular now, I've mentioned Back to Black (for car plastic) on here before and some YouTuber's have taken my advice and tried it on their equipment.
