Cassette players and tapes, vintage Game Boys and boomboxes seem like relics of a bygone era. So why are they being snapped up, sometimes for eye-watering prices?
In 1989, jewellery maker Tiffany & Co and electronics company Sony released a silver-plated Walkman (complete with a fitted wooden box) to celebrate 10 years of the portable cassette player. Only 250 were made. Several decades on, and long since the cassette Walkman began its slide into obsolescence – outpaced first by the cumbersome Discman and the vibe-less MiniDisc player, then lapped by the iPod and iPhone – you can still find some of these items selling in auctions for hundreds and sometimes thousands of pounds.
One of the Tiffany Walkmans, originally presented to the Who, was later sold by the ex-wife of the band’s late bassist John Entwistle on a 2011 episode of the US TV show Pawn Stars. After some haggling, the traders at Gold & Silver Pawn in Las Vegas agreed to pay $1,250 for it. “This is one of those weird things that I think someone’s willing to buy just to say they have it,” reasoned Pawn Stars’ Corey Harrison to his father, Rick.
