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General Vintage Technology Discussions For general discussions about vintage radio and other vintage electronics etc. |
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1st Jun 2017, 9:14 pm | #101 |
Dekatron
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Re: "House" brands.
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1st Jun 2017, 9:26 pm | #102 |
Moderator
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Re: "House" brands.
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1st Jun 2017, 9:40 pm | #103 |
Octode
Join Date: May 2009
Location: Stevenage, Herts. UK.
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Re: "House" brands.
Van DerMolen started off as a legitimate tape recorder company founded by two ex Elizabethan employees, They used a deck bought in from Italy mated to their own electronics.
Dixons also used the Miranda & Pyramid names on some of their photo stuff. |
1st Jun 2017, 10:36 pm | #104 | |
Heptode
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: High Wycombe, Bucks. UK.
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Re: "House" brands.
Quote:
http://www.petervis.com/Tape%20Recor...el%203289.html Only difference is that it's branded Duette instead of Ferguson, and the Thorn logo on the speaker grille is replaced by the letters iC (short for integrated circuit, I presume, since the use of an i.c. is one of its key design features.) On the back, it says Made in Hong Kong. I'm not sure who originally sold it. I acquired mine from a table top sale at the Wireless Museum in Dulwich, London. I also remember Murphy, Cathay and Cascade appearing in mail order catalogues in the 1980s. Can't remember which catalogues now. Probably GUS (Great Universal Stores), Kays or Littlewoods. |
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2nd Jun 2017, 4:15 am | #105 |
Dekatron
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Location: Worksop, Nottinghamshire, UK.
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Re: "House" brands.
Aldi use Crofton on kitchen stuff including kitchen scales.
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2nd Jun 2017, 4:23 am | #106 |
Dekatron
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Location: Rugeley, Staffordshire, UK.
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Re: "House" brands.
This thread has identified quite a few brands that are perceived as being house brands, but they're not. Interesting given that the whole idea of a house brand in the first place is to try to create a somewhat separate 'identity', yet we have cases of true brands being thought of as house brands?! Topsy-turvy!
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2nd Jun 2017, 4:36 am | #107 |
Nonode
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Location: Gloucester, Glos. UK.
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Re: "House" brands.
Yes I worked for them in the late 70s up till the early 90s and the brand came later on in my time with them.
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2nd Jun 2017, 4:43 am | #108 |
Tetrode
Join Date: Feb 2013
Location: Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA
Posts: 59
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Re: "House" brands.
All the talk about Radio Shack/Tandy is bringing back memories over here, especially given that they seem to have gasped their last and the last remaining store in my area has closed. I remember Realistic being the brand for audio components, and at least one of the types of blank cassette tapes they sold. Archer was more technical. Rooftop TV antennae and antenna rotators would have been branded Archer. That was also the brand on the limited range toy walkie-talkies I received as a present at around age nine. Science Fair was the brand on all kinds of cool stuff, and I remember Micronta being used on a microcassette recorder. A thing that seemed odd about Radio Shack was even into the late 80s and early 90s, their cash system was quite primitive. The salesperson had to handwrite your purchase receipt, use a calculator for taxes and to make change, and all money went into a battered-looking wooden drawer. This was long after even a shop like Dollar Tree seemed to have laser scanners at the till.
Sears used Silvertone as an own-brand on audio equipment. Some of it was pretty good. They also used it on guitars, amps and the like, most of which was derided in the day but have since become collector's items. I also have a Sears Tower typewriter that my great-uncle bought new in 1957. He had to go all the way to Marietta, GA to get it as the local store didn't stock them. I can't recall any other Sears-own brands. I worked at JCPenney for many years, and the only thing I remember having an own-brand was some of their component stereo equipment. The name seemed sort of technical, like a model number. If you bought the top-end of that range, it was likely made by Panasonic. If you cheaped out and went low-end, you got what you paid for. Not sure if their TVs had a unique brand, but a customer once wanted to know who manufactured them, and I found out that the OEM was Goldstar. Western Auto was another popular store over here that's since passed on, and at least one own-brand they had was TruTone for their radios. I think my first tricycle came from Western Auto when I was a wee lad, and it was a Flying-O by Otasco. Best Buy seems to use Insignia as their own brand. Some folks mentioned hire-purchase and rental TVs... That happens here too. Rent-A-Center and Aaron's Rental Purchase are two companies that do that, though there are others. Everything from furniture to computers these days. Seems like the bulk of TVs that were sold/rented through Rent-A-Center were under the Curtis Mathes brand. That brand was one that started off strong and well-respected, but ended up pretty near the bargain basement. |
2nd Jun 2017, 9:10 am | #109 |
Rest in Peace
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Location: N.W. Oxfordshire(Chipping Norton)
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Re: "House" brands.
Tandy in the UK still had the handwritten till receipt system up to the time they closed, IIRC. For a firm which sold technical items it did seem a bit old-fashioned. The independant family Auto-electrical firm for whom I worked used wooden cash drawers and handwritten till receipts right to the end in April 1995. They still had electro-mechanical calculating nachines in the office, too!
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2nd Jun 2017, 10:12 am | #110 | |
Moderator
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Re: "House" brands.
Quote:
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2nd Jun 2017, 11:13 am | #111 |
Rest in Peace
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Location: Solihull, West Midlands, UK.
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Re: "House" brands.
I am always amused when I see on shelf labels "xxx - exclusive to Lidl". I imagine this is supposed to make me think mainly of 'exclusive' i.e special, not many other people have this privilege. It actually makes me think 'Not another Lidl house brand! Why don't they just label it Lidl and be proud of their own brand?'
I would like to see the name of the manufacturer on all manufactured goods. It could be in small print on the back of the box, but it should be there. That should slowly get rid of modern brands, except for those who want to be seen to be wasting their money on the 'right' brands. |
2nd Jun 2017, 12:45 pm | #112 |
Octode
Join Date: May 2007
Location: Liss, Hampshire, UK.
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Re: "House" brands.
Rumour has it that these were actually made by Crown who held the rights to the PZM trademark at the time. Incidentally, Crown gear was sold as Amcron over here as the Crown brand name was owned by someone else and used for the cheap electronics gear already mentioned. I've recently seen the US Crown gear being sold in the UK under its real name so I'd assume that the current owners, Harman Professional, have now bought the rights to the name for this country.
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2nd Jun 2017, 1:15 pm | #113 |
Retired Dormant Member
Join Date: Dec 2007
Location: Cambridge, Cambs. UK.
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Re: "House" brands.
Was Contec an exclusive-to-Dixons brand for TVs in the early 80's? We had a Contec portable which was a UK version of this one (UHF only with loop aerial rather than telescopic):
http://www.radiomuseum.org/r/contec_kt_8135.html I only remember a handful of models and don't think they were around for long. Certainly never saw them anywhere besides Dixons. They were all advertised as featuring Toshiba tubes. |
2nd Jun 2017, 1:24 pm | #114 | |
Dekatron
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: Wiltshire, UK.
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Re: "House" brands.
Quote:
So the amateur-radio stuff was imported and sold badged as Trio in the UK (largely and seemingly uniquely via Lowe Electronics who were based in Matlock, Derbyshire - who at one time indulged in serious 'anti-grey-imports' advertising in amateur radio magazines to discourage people from buying 'Kenwood' radios other than from Lowe's!) I don't know precisely what happened - was there a rapprochement between the companies in the late-1980s, a free-trade lawsuit or something - but about that time various other non-Lowe UK amateur-radio importer/dealers started offering Trio-Kenwood radios badged "Kenwood". |
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2nd Jun 2017, 4:16 pm | #115 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jun 2013
Location: East Sussex, UK.
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Re: "House" brands.
"Trio-Kenwood Corporation (Japan) sold hifi " initially imported by B.H.Morris who were an inport/distribution company owned by Laskys, in the days when they only had a couple of shops in Lisle Street (1960's). It was sold as Trio to avoid the clash with Mr Ken Wood etc. as mentioned above. It was sold through Hi-Fi dealers throughout GB and not restricted to Laskys.
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2nd Jun 2017, 4:56 pm | #116 |
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Re: "House" brands.
Ken Wood had the Kenwood name as a registered trade mark, so it was a matter of how much range of product types that registration covered. Trio corporation were cautious and chose not to risk a lawsuit, so they used their own name directly rather than the Kenwood brand name they used in many other countries. I think the foodmixer firm went into the hands of the Thorn group who might not have seen 'Kenwood' on amateur radio gear as threatening to their businesses, but would likely have responded to the appearance on domestic hifi.
It all comes down to who can convince a court of law that their registered trademark covers a market segment, and that their toes have been trodden on. It seems like eventually it was decided that Mr Public could tell the difference between a food mixer and a hifi amplifier and an HF transceiver, David
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2nd Jun 2017, 5:31 pm | #117 | ||
Hexode
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Luton, Bedfordshire, UK.
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Re: "House" brands.
Quote:
I had one of those cassette recorders in 1978 I think. It wasn't branded Ferguson for sure, but I forget the branding on it. A couple of years later several friends had the Ferguson version with tone control as well as volume...they were considered the absolute best for Sinclair computers despite the DC bias. Thinking of genuine, big names used under license by stores for "exclusive to us" products.....I have a Qualcast lawn mower which was exclusive to Homebase and Argos and is very similar to devices sold under the MACallister name in B&Q. It's definitely sold/made under a licensing agreement with Qualcast and was sold alongside the stuff that came from the proper Qualcast factory but was an entry level model. It's pretty good though, not in any way going to damage the brand. Tesco sold TVs and similar under the TECHNICA moniker, perhaps still do. Entry level stuff but does the job, from what I can tell. The last time I was stateside, was Las Vegas in 2015 and I hit a couple of Radio Shack stores for old times. Bought a Rat Shack branded decibel meter as they were closing the store and offering them at something daft like $8. I also picked up a handful of transistors old enough to be in the Archer packaging from the 80s by the looks of it. |
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2nd Jun 2017, 7:02 pm | #118 |
Heptode
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: High Wycombe, Bucks. UK.
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Re: "House" brands.
Could it have been Winthronics? I've attached a picture of the same cassette recorder as I have, only badged Winthronics instead of Duette or Ferguson. I believe Winthronics or Winthrop items were sold by Tesco in the '70s - I have a vintage ad, which I've also attached. The one in the advert looks like a different model. (I also remember having the Winthrop President 8 track + cassette music centre mentioned in the same advert, now long gone unfortunately.)
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2nd Jun 2017, 9:04 pm | #119 |
Hexode
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Luton, Bedfordshire, UK.
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Re: "House" brands.
I don't think it was Winthronics. I do not ever recall seeing that name, but we didn't have a Tesco until the mid 80s.
My recollections are that the brand was perhaps three letters, but definitely not ITT (I had a lovely ITT a few years later though). ITC possibly? I can still see the instruction manual in my mind's eye which was B&W with blue as a second colour...cheaply printed. But the machine died circa 1980 and I was only 7 then. It's been a long time. |
2nd Jun 2017, 9:30 pm | #120 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: Staffordshire Moorlands, UK.
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Re: "House" brands.
I wonder how much of the house branding came about due to the manufacturers not wanting to supply discount stores with their jealously guarded company named equipment in case it dragged it down somewhat; at least in the earlier days, post the anti-cartel Co-Op/Defiant thing. The fact that much later, some manufacturers did a deal with the devil and licensed their upmarket brand for use on cheaper stuff, I find ironic indeed; though that might have come about as part of some venture capitalist buying-out a failing manufacturer with a valuable brand portfolio.
When microwave ovens first came out, I remember talking to one of the engineers at Creda who said the only thing they rebadged was the microwaves, and that they had them made firstly by Litton, then later by Mitsubishi, as they'd been the only ones worthy of Creda's name. The issue I have with branding in general is that people are very often fooled into thinking they're buying something more upmarket than they actually are. But on the bright side, some house brands are still good value for money and simply made by a reputable, though unpronouncible manufacturer of chinese or eastern european origin. An interesting example might be Beko...which is a brand name of the manufacturer Arcelik-Koc Holding. I'll give them that one.....
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