From Aaron Luis Levinson: > 1. Thank you so much for that truly unique story. You are I'm afraid > one of the > few people who could tell the whole story of this curio. But the $64K > remains: > Do you still have one? > > 2. The Philco story is indeed a sad one but it dovetails perfectly into > why the US car industry itself almost died when faced with the ruthless > innovation and higher standards of our Japanese competitors. <snip> I hope the other listers find at least a little interest in my responses. Since Aaron Levinson posted his response on the list, I decided to do the same. 1. Regarding #1, I never owned either a hip pocket record or the player (which, if I recall correctly, had a tone arm long enough to handle 12" LPs, but, as I said, had a tiny platter). The moment I saw what Philco was up to, as ballyhooed in the company newsrag, my reaction was disbelief. Although I had long before (at age 4, so it must be genetic) been bitten by the collector's bug, I just couldn't see throwing any kind of money at such an idiotic idea. 2. Regarding #2, it's funny that you should mention cars. Being a division of the Ford Motor Company, Philco and its employees were treated every year to an on-site preview of the new-model-year cars that Ford produced. I think it was in 1971 when I sat down in a by-then-HUGE Thunderbird and looked into the rearview mirror. All I could see was a wide but very narrow slit of a rear window, through which I could hardly see a thing. Without thinking, I exclaimed out loud "This is terrible!". Suddenly, a very agitated Ford employee came running from behind the car saying, "What do you mean? What do you mean?" Since he had to ask, it's obvious that there was a complete disconnect between Dearborn and the rest of the world. The rest (and there's a lot of that!) is history. Aaron Z