Montgomery wards "airline" consoles

[stereorob]

So digging around my garage I discovered I have two monkey wards " airline" consoles I didn't know I even had! -yeah I have that much crap that I lost two consoles for a decade anyway one is a smaller tube-type one pictured below and I have another larger one that's early solid state that goes by airline "transonic" that has all the bells and whistles and actually sounds pretty damn good for what it is, they also have "imperial" record changers with "man-guard" tone Arms -dunno what the logic behind this is. What gets me Is I'm curious as to who the hell made these for monkey wards?! I have a few ideas but what do you guys think? Know who made them??

[dieseljeep]

Originally Posted by stereorob

So digging around my garage I discovered I have two monkey wards " airline" consoles I didn't know I even had! -yeah I have that much crap that I lost two consoles for a decade anyway one is a smaller tube-type one pictured below and I have another larger one that's early solid state that goes by airline "transonic" that has all the bells and whistles and actually sounds pretty damn good for what it is, they also have "imperial" record changers with "man-guard" tone Arms -dunno what the logic behind this is. What gets me Is I'm curious as to who the hell made these for monkey wards?! I have a few ideas but what do you guys think? Know who made them??

The changer shown is definately a VM.
Wards had several different firms building their portable and console stereos.
Their better line was usually Wells Gardner. The lower end was Audio Industries and Waters Conley and several others.
Wards, like Sears, had several suppliers to build a product for a certain price-point.

[bob91343]

So what am I supposed to do with my Marantz 2275? It seems to be a forgotten model. I would like to sell it.

[orthophonic]

Yes, Wells gardner made the majority of the better Wards electronics until the mid/late 70's, they sourced some from Sylvania after that.

The changer is VM and the tonearm is MarGuard, not manguard, it was
a floating cartridge system similar to Zenith Micro-Touch and RCA Feather Action in that you could drop the arm or swipe it across the record and the cartridge would retract and not scratch (Mar) the record.

[bgadow]

I have a '66 Airline TV that was made by Muntz; I don't think they were a supplier for long.

[Electronic M]

Originally Posted by bgadow

I have a '66 Airline TV that was made by Muntz; I don't think they were a supplier for long.

Dido, but mine is a year newer.