Dear Friends

Some days ago a friend gave me a portable transistor radio set.  Muxima, Model 412N

I guess that it was bought in Angola, several years  ago.

MUXIMA  means  heart  in "Kimbundu" , the old Angola's dialect..

This  radio was made in Japan, or in Angola by license of  a Japanese maker. That's what I've  infered from the reference graved in its plastic box.

 But that reference is unusual.  JAPAN 757. Also the manufacturer's name is missed.

Do you know what  757 means? Have you seen any Japanese reference look like this one? 

757 may be the manufacturer's code?

Thank you in advance for any information.

Regards

Mario Coelho

Dear Mario
I received two answers from Japan - but not yet a solution.
I thank here for the two very kind answers and give you the text of one:
Can you check if you find any Japanese markings and if yes, can you take a photo and present it here?

"Dear Ernest,
Thank you for a letter regarding a name of Japan 757.
Unfortunately, my seaches in Japanese language with Google show nothing at all.
Furthermore, there are no informations in many Japanese old radio sights.

I would like to ask you to open the back lid of the radio and if you can find some
printed letters atached on it. Any Japanes letters (Kanji) on a label would make it
possible to break through when I can read it.

I never know a manufacture's list to show which number is which maker.
Anyway, I 'll keep to try seaching the brand name.
Thank you.

regards.
Yutaka Matsuzaka"

Thank you very much, Yutaka, that you try to help finding out.
I keep this post as an open question. It should "come up" again.

Dear OMs,

  Sorry,I can not identify the radio manufacture from the pictures

though all parts installed on the board are clealy made in Japan.

The words TAKADA MUSEN on the IFT shows manufacture's name'

of this IFT in that period and Japanese MUSEN means 'wireless' like

Yaesu Musen.

I'll send the URL to some Japanese who have the webs for the antique radios

to be identified the radio manufacture.The results will be sent to this page soon.

So, it would need more times to get additional infomations on this matter.

Thank you.

regards,

Y.Matsuzaka--JA1ATL

Dears Friends

As information, I present two transistor radios sets recently gotten in Portuguese flea markets.

The references engraved in the plastic box of the follow one, in my opinion, show indubitably that "Tokiwa Electrical Industries Co. Ltd" is the 725 Japanese maker.

The other follow one, similary to the "Muxima" radio set, show that the 517 Japanese maker manufactured the 655 model radio set to the "Royal" Germany brand.

With this information, I hoope to help on to a good decision about upload the models of Japanese Manufacturer's 757, 725, 517.

Best Regards

Silvestre

Thank you very much Silvestre for your help. Now we have alredy three numbers from a list. That list ought to exist.

Unfortunately, after all these days we haven't yet that  list from Japan. Nevertheless we have three identification numbers which correspond to three Japanese makers.

For one of them we know a name : Tokiwa Electrical Industries Co. Ltd.

I think that if you wish, you may create  : "Tokiwa Electrical Industries Co. Ltd". (Japan 725). as a new maker in Rmorg.

But we don't know yet the name of the other two makers,though we know their identification numbers. No doubt about that numbers.

I wonder if may we cause any inconvenience  to open in Rmorg temporary the other two makers as “Japan 517” and “Japan 757” till the day we may get the Japanese list?  

Regards

Mario

Meanwhile I found another code number  Japan 304 in a RINSING set model BP-815 (waiting for acceptance in Rmorg pages).

More:

Meanwhile I've found in Rmorg three transistor radios JT-602 . Two of them are Orion and one is  Belson brand.

By the way , I've one Orion with the same (model number?)  JT-602.....

But this model number (if it is for sure the model number ) is a little larger : 

JT-602 JAPAN

But, If one pay attention, inside, on the chassis, is TR -108 D2

Questions:

Could  Orion and Belson sets  be made in the same factory ? Then  JT-602 JAPAN should be their code number and TR -108 D2 should be this Orion Model number.

I put the  same questions when I see this code number JT-602 also in a very different radio in this site: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Atrium/1031/trans/cool/Signal.html

Ernst Erb  May 9, 2011 (for Holger Ormann and others):
I try here to reduce posts 6 to 15 to this one by having here a summary:

Holger Ortmann:
Sets With Japan Number on the Back Cover 704 = SANYO Sanyo MR 212, Sanyo N 26 Cassette Tape Recorder SANYO M88,the Same Recorder with the German Brand name Loewe Opta OC440. Loewe Opta OC 445, OC 448, Universum Quelle) Ordernumber 07404 Saba CG320, Saba CG 325 JAPAN 101 A Radiorecorder original With the Name AIWA, an unknown Type with the Japan number 101 BASF Radiorecorder 9301 with the Japannumber 101. "German" Taperecorders - manufactured in Japan - not in Germany! Number 515 = Teleton

with japanese Transistors..... ITT Schaub Lorenz SL 50, SL52, SL55, Studiorecorder 60, 70, 72, RC 1000, etc.. Neckermann Luxus Cassette recoder 823/147 with No. 515 on the Botton

An Universum (Quelle) Order Nr 02729 RadioRecorder japanese manufactured with the Number 718 on the Botton

Sometimes the Criterium of Japan manufactures are the ORDER NUMBER on the PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARD, not the Number on the Cover !
Not the GCMK Number on the P.C.Board
FUNAI Videorecorder VCR 4000, VCR 4500
Videorecorder FUNAI with the  CVC Cassette,Typenumber unknown
The nearly same Recorders named Grundig VP 100, Siemens FM 500, Technicolor CVC, Universum CVC RecorderType unknown. 

Sets named with a German Brandname,but made by Funai:
Tape Deck Telefunken RC 100, RC 200,Blaupunkt XC 240, Siemens RC 333, Uher CG 344, Universum Tapedecks Hifi 6000, Hifi 6600, Universum CT2307 and many others.
On all this Sets have P.C.Boards with a 7 x Number, beginning with 161....
Service Technican said, the really Manufactor is Funai Japan (for Telefunken RC200, Universum Hifi6600, Uher CG344 etc) Only in very old Funai Sets are this Kind of Number of the Boards.

Second  Example  +++ CROWN Radio Corporation +++
There stand on the P.C.Board   A M B ...and a 3 x Number. Example Mini TV CROWN CTV-12 and
Universum FK100 (FK 100).

Below, Wolfgang Scheida began the list, Holger Ortmann did propose and Wolfgang Scheida and I will continue to fill this list - if we receive findings from you - please also photograph your findings and put htem to the model page.

Mario Coelho:

Why  one can see JAPAN + a code number, only on this "Strange" brandnamestypes?
1st hypothesis: Japan 704 means that this radio was made in a  factory inside Japan or not, but supervised by Sanyo or by license of Sanyo. It was  not made by Sanyo in its mother factory.
answer :Code Japan 704 means Sanyo satellit factories not Sanyo or Japan..
2nd Hypothesis: Japan 704 means  Sanyo's exported models  .
answer: Japan 704 means particular models  from Sanyo.

We list a product there where a collector looks for. In most cases this is the country of production and sales. In later years production was outsourced. In that case: If there are differencies on a set AND it is also sold/advertised in that country of origin then we may open a new brand/manufacturer name for that country.

Theses are exceptional cases like we also can find for US brands/manufacturers in regard to Canada or other export or manufacturing countries like Argentina or Chile etc. But this is for instance not the case for a Loewe Opta sold in Germany - even if made in Japan by Sanyo. For cases like those we state the origin in the notes.

We may have some problems with this in certain cases like for Grundig which brand was sold to a company in Turkey. See model 75TE which is listed in Germany and in Turkey by good reasons. You just have to look at the back wall the different origins - both for export ... Grundig had also its works in England and you find schematics etc. in the UK. Some models then are naturally also found twice, like the model 2035... in Germany and the UK.

Quite a different case are some companies like Philips which had and has manufacturing plants all over the world. We list more than 30 countries with production we show models for. Some of these models are manufactured, only assembled or imported and it is sometimes not possible to distinguish. We even list some Philips models in Germany which officially never have been made in Germany nor exported to. They may have been imported by private persons at that time or later by collectors in big numbers. This is quite an other case and exception.

I just wanted to show that we have a solution for each of these cases. We should concentrate here in this thread on those Japan-Numbers and not discuss the policy or the way to do it. We only want duplicates where it is absolutely necessary for a reference work - but it is essential that we state facts about a model in the notes.

Japanese Radio Manufacturers Codes

See below all used codes as well already known manufacturers:

If you have more informations please write to the platform operator - Thanks!
EE October 12, 2013: I received about 20 new entries from Jens Gruber and thank him for his work to find out. He even delivered links to the model pages. I put his in bold, but I need first the links to the models ... Will be done later.
The BIG PLAYERS did not need a MITI-Number, their production were above that standard or met it in any case!

Japan 101 =  AIWA
Japan 109 = Coney Onkyo (Conion) Japan, AWA  A/asia (Japanese export), Wendell-West (CR-18)
Japan 110 = Roberts (US) 450 Tape Recorder
 
Japan 201 = ERB radio
Japan 203 = Columbia Records Sales Corp. Masterworks M-2918
Japan 205 = Okinawa TR-863
Japan 206 = Funai (see e.g. Wealth Autoportable), also mfr. for US Brand Allied and GE P2760B
Japan 220 = Bell & Howell: 8 Track Stereo/FM Multiplex 4550 TPF

Japan 302 = Sharp = Airline Gen-1469A see also 705 for Airline, RCA RJM36E 
Japan 303 = Hitachi, see car radio Emden II KM-1846 and Cassette Recorder TRQ-253
Japan 304 = Rising, model BP-815 ; Musicstar ms4545

Japan 403 = Koyo Denki, see 8 Transistor 2 Band KTR-834, Six Tr. de Luxe and Ross RE-1942

Japan 501 = Singer Solid State FM/AM Cassette HE-6030 Japan 501.
Japan 502 = Matsushita (Panasonic, National?) see Car Radio CR-700EU
Japan 506 = Nanaola- Nanao Nippon Radio Co. (NRC, model 8NC-123)
Japan 508 = Watson Model 280 - NTR-6G Globe Six, Marc Japan.
Japan 509 = Peerless NPR-100 
Japan 513 = most probably Tokai Wireless Co., see this model - see also here and there.
Japan 515 = TELETON
Japan 516 = Victor Company of Japan (JVC)
Japan 517 = Royal 655, Standard SR-H437, Lloyd's 5K05A and 5K05B, Fantavox TA-8001

Japan 601 = Emerson 31P56
Japan 602 = Orion (JT-602)
Japan 604 = Realtone Globepacer 11 Band 8812, Realtone 2287 
Japan 605 = Emerson 31P53   

Japan 609 = Ferguson Radio Corp. Ltd. London, Model 3160

Japan 611 = Midnight Owl WACO , WACO Rolls Royce 1910

Japan 703 =
Japan 704 =  SANYO: Magnavox 2-FM-806 (original = Sanyo 8F-801?) Channel Master 6506B 

Japan 705 = Airline Airline Gen-3617A - see also 302.
Japan 708 = Wilco (6-Transistor 360, 8 Transistor Deluxe ST-88, ST-7), Masterwork M-2902 

Japan 710 = Toshiba (see Model 7H-896F)
Japan 712 = Desesco International S.R.L. (where?) See Rexina Clock Radio
Japan 715 = Weltron (where?) See the ball-shaped 8 Track Stereo AM/FM Multiplex 2001
Japan 716 = Wien Sport 9 Transistor and here, maybe Realtone? See this model
Japan 718 = Master-Craft 15 Transistor 
Japan 725 = Tokiwa Electrical Industries Co. Ltd  (data from Silvestre -Portugal)
Japan 757 = Muxima 412N - where this thread started

Japan 803 = Arrow

Japan 902 = Captain YT-981 probably made by Yashima Electric
Japan 903 = as seen on LONGINES SYMPHONETTE MULTI-BAND RADIO & here Master-Craft TR-1400 

EE March 16, 2011 Sep 13, 2012 = changed a dead outbound link.
joined models from the other list which I have deleted (doublet), added links to models and model ERB ;-) 2017+2018 joined more models ...

BN January 15, 2019, added new Miti no. 712 (Desesco) and 715 (Weltron), added proof for 206, now assigned to Funai, 303 for Hitachi and 403 for Koyo Denki. Thanks to Miguel Bravo for this input!

This thread has grown too long and I have tried to delete some posts without loosing information.
Each post can help to find a true solution. So please go on, posting here if you find new codes or the same code on an other brand. I then will take the information and put it into the post just above.

Here I will try to concentrate for conclusions. Please take a photo of such codes and put it to the model page in a way that we have many proves.

I have received different theories - but not yet an evidence:
The most certain is from Eckhard Wegner who dealt quite a lot with Japan at that time: MITI (Ministry of International Trade and Industry) has given that 3 digit Japan Code as proof for a certain quality standard for smaller and medium sized manufacturers. Big companies as Sony, National, Nivico etc. had to loose a good brand name by failing in quality. Therefore such number was not necessary.

The JAPAN Code was probably not a forerunner of ISO 9000 which is a quality management system, but maybe a manufacturer could apply for such a number by showing some quality standards - or maybe has had some training for quality - and MITI would probably check some of the exports of such manufacturers by looking at the quality. Anyway: All shipping papers needed to show the number. That’s why the importers worldwide could trust even the lower end items quality, different of those from Taiwan, Korea, Hongkong etc. This system had been stopped around 1980 and today MITI has other obligations.

We still miss an official document, proving that MITI stands behind this - but it is most probable. We don't know if the code was given for a certain product line, a company, a group - but by collecting those numbers over a longer period we might find out.

Rule:
Please check your early Japan models for such code - normally found on the rear of the set. If found, please take a photo, load it up and put into the notes:
MITI JAPAN Code ... (with this HTML code it comes in bold). See here and here.
With this expression we can find all such models with the SEARCH (from the next day on). It is a neutral wording which has nothing to do with a certain manufacturer.

The SEARCH with "MITI JAPAN" would bring all such models, but Konrad's idea on next post - to put it also into the actual search fields (as (Japan xxx)) for the model search on top of this has also good values - and doing it on two occasions it will stick better in case of changes.

Please enter a new post here if you found a new one or can give us the link to a known one, by linking to the model - or giving the model ID.
I will then add it to the list above as link to the model page. We will see what we get for a certain number ... Maybe several models for the same number.
There are examples above without having created a model page - for instance Royal 655 for MITI JAPAN Code 517 ...

I will add a thread in German - since there is a big potential there on members and sets ... but add new numbers and findings here.

Dear Mario, dear all,
 

I strongly recommend to mention such code not only in the remarks. It is even more useful in either one of the two searchable fields: Model name or Model type. The latter I would prefer.

The entry shhould be in brackets (Japan XXX)

That permits to search for a listing of all models being manufactured by the quoted manufacturer, regardless under whatever name it was marketed.

Such a search must ignore the country and manufacturer to be entered. Only the model field would see  (Japan XXX).

Note:

I prepared a model sheet for your "Muxima" to show what I mean. Please complete it with all available data/ info.
Thank you,
KoBi 

Very recently I contacted METI (formerly MITI) in Japan to ask them for information about the codes for radio manufacturers and to send me the complete and accurate list. They answered me that they were not aware of any list with code numbers for radio manufacturers, but nevertheless they will try to find more information.

In the meantime I have my doubts whether the list with codes for the Japanese industry really has been set up by MITI. In that case MITI would have known and further it would have been a coincidence that the radio manufacturers would have got the first series of codes with the lowest numbers, ranging from 101 to 999. My suspicion is that those numbers were given to some (or all) Japanese radio manufacturers by the Japanese Association of Radio Manufacturers (or organisation with a similar name) in order to enable the identification of the maker of radios manufactured in Japan.
I have asked further questions and hope to get a useful answer soon.

It seems also a good idea to me to follow the proposal of Sandor Selyem Tóth and to contact Japanese radio manufacturers for information about the code numbers. Companies having a code number and still in the business today, would be the best candidates to contact.


Gidi Verheijen

Dear David
Thank you for your question, Above in post 8 yes, we have entered SANYO but further above hopefully you find more about this - for instance in post 6 - otherwise we don't know more ... We might have to add those models to the list later.

At least I don't know the system and we try to get facts, but have never found a real list. Maybe it is all in Japanese.

I add your model to code 704, because only if we can match a lot of models and link to "both sides" we might get a better picture later. Best would naturally be if somebody comes up with that official list. Even then it would be of interest which models were built under which Japan code.

You might add to the model that we believe it is built by Sanyo for code 704.

April 10, 2018: I entered all into post 8 what came after this and above and deleted the entries of David Erali, Martin Kent and Holger Ortmann with quite a few "connections"! Rhanks! This then forces to write a new post, so that i can fill in into the list because of the automatic message of the server I asked for.

Thank you very much that you have entered your knowledge also to the models and made links. Perfect!
What we miss is most often photos of the printed circuits.
Hopefully one day this list is in vain because we get a complete list from somewhere ... But as long as we don't know such a list, this is a wonderful example of how one can work-out together some facts.

Update: An example has been added for Japan 502, Matsushita (Panasonic, National) in post #8 and linked to the model.

Also "big players" such as the company Matsushita was therefore assigned a Miti code.

I have made a spreadsheet to sort codes by number and also by brand.  I have omitted specific models since there are too many.  PDF files are attached.  Please let me know if there are any comments or corrections.  We have little info regarding the manufacturers.

A few new models as follows:

Airline GEN-1329A has code 705.

RCA RJG-15Y has code 703

Commodore TW-88 has code 205

Valiant TR-1508 has code 903

Juliette MPR-3307 has code 707

RCA RZM 178T has code 302

RCA RZM 188E has code 302

RCA RZM 193 has code 705

Lloyds 6K89D has code 713

Masterwork 10 has code 708

Bradford WTG-89094 has code 501

Bradford WTG-60715 has code 501

Midland 10-405 has code 902

Alaron B-2500 has code 903

Attachments

• Japan Codes sorted by code (43 KB)
• Japan Codes sorted by brand (43 KB)

Most probably Tokai Wireless Co. Ltd. can be allocated to the Miti Code 513, interestingly models branded with Tokai itself  doesn't show this code. However, the sub-brand Life Tone (and also some models distibuted by Neckermann Versand, Germany) show it.

The entry for Miti 513 in post #8 has been edited with a new link.

Also added: Japan 716, found at model Wien Sport 9 Transistor and a Realtone branded model.

To know much more about the Japan code please read this very informative and well researched article by David Erali (USA).

If you know more please address to David by using either "Mail to the author" on a post of him as a member or as a guest using "Contact" as the bottom link on each of our pages.