Panasonic tube portable

I remember Panasonic kept that little "National" thing going into the late 70s as this is reflected on my Panasonic 8-track player. The scripture is an aluminum plate glued to a cast-in plastic base that makes up the front of the player.

Maybe someone here knows what or amybe where I can find *this* set that Im about to describe.
I had this set in the early 80s and was a Panasonic series string hybrid 12" color and the set was on a pedastal and could be tilted up or down or panned to the sides. The entire cabinet was a black plastic with aluminum or painted trim, used click tuners with lighted numbers and the base held the slider controls for the picture and 3 buttons on the right side marked Pana-Color, Power, AFT and were white squares with light behind them. I remember it used tubes for the horiz section, think even a 5AQ5 on the audio side and a sprinkle of other novars for the other functions. Had the set in 1984 and stupidly traded it for some bike parts, I found the set about a year later with a hammer through the CRT and everything else busted up next to the kids garbage can. Made me so mad at the time I made it a personal quest to find another like it, just cant remember the model number but know it was a Pana-color series from the late 60s. A 22 year quest man I need a life!

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[bgadow]

In the late 80s I bought a new portable AM-FM cassette player which was prominently labeled National Panasonic. I bought it at the local freight salvage store, where many weird things are prone to turn up. I suspect it was a "gray market" import of some sort as it was obviously not intended for the US market although it was labeled all in American English.

One of my first attempts at a real repair of something electronic was to a seventies solid state Panasonic 12" bw. A TV repairman gave it to me; must have been dropped as the chassis board was cracked all the way around. I actually repaired it and it worked, though my soldering skills at the time were atrocious and the repair didn't hold.

[andy]

I believe National was the brand (or at least a brand) Matsuchita used in much of the world outside the US. I remember seeing a National VCR in England.

[Whirled One]

Originally Posted by andy

I believe National was the brand (or at least a brand) Matsuchita used in much of the world outside the US. I remember seeing a National VCR in England.

Correct-- Matsushita (at least until some time ago) used the National brand name for most of the world. I think they originally only used the Panasonic name for products sold in the USA (and perhaps Canada), though they often used the old "N"-shaped National logo with the Panasonic name. I'm not sure if they're still using the National name though. Like bgadow, I have seen products with both names ("National Panasonic") on them and I think they may have phased out the "National" name in preference to "Panasonic" worldwide.

The fact that the controls are labeled in English might not necessarily mean anything though. Somewhere around here I've got a mid-1980's-era small Japanese portable radio/cassette-recorder that I found at a hamfest a while back. I think it was a Sharp (or was it a Sanyo..?). It was obviously intended for the Japanese market, but the control labels and other text is an odd mixture of English combined with Japanese kana and kanji. One funny thing is that it seems like all Japanese manufacturers of consumer electronic devices label their products with a "Romanized" verison of their brand-name, even in their home market. However, if you browse the electronics section of the Amazon Japan web site (www.amazon.co.jp), those same brand names are often listed in kana and/or kanji characters instead-- even if the brand is really an English word or name anyway that would have to be "shoe-horned" into the Japanese phoentic system with katakana. [Such as "Pioneer", "Sharp", or "Victor", which become パイオニア, シャープ, and ビクター respectively in katakana characters (assuming your computer has suitable fonts installed). By the way, if I transliterate those characters back into our Roman alphabet, those names would literally turn into "Paionia", "Shaapu", and "Bikutaa"]. I wonder if Amazon's frequent use of Japanese characters for brand names is in part just to discourage curious gaijin like us from browsing around the Japanese-market version of their site.


[Disclaimer: I am a novice at Japanese. I hardly even know enough Japanese to get in trouble...]

I figured I'd mention this. I picked up a 1962 Panasonic tube table radio while visiting a friend in Montreal while at a flea market.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nM1CyMW2jjg

All other older Matsushita electronics I saw there were labeled either National Panasonic or National. This radio just says Panasonic, no mention of National on it anywhere.

[andy]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_(brand)

[bgadow]

To go along with that, remember that The National Company was an American radio manufacturer of note, famous for its great ham radio equipment. It died just as Matsushita was taking off in the US. The existence of this National had to have been the reason the sets were renamed here, while other non-electronic products the company sold were not in conflict.