This ad for Seymour's Jewelers, which ran in the paper on July 2, 1954, recommended that readers bring some music along 'over the fourth' with a Motorola Console Tone portable radio.
"Here is a portable with 6 tube performance and power," the ad notes. "Largest, lightest speaker ever used in a set this size, gives console tone. Long life batteries. Handsome and lightweight in its streamlined bakelite case of green, grey or maroon."
The radio sold for a mere $49.95 (that's $583.19 in today's inflated greenbacks). Or, the purchaser could buy it with no money down for $1.25 a week (or $14.59 today).
"Sorry, kids – we couldn't afford to buy food for dinner tonight because we bought that radio! But we'll have fun at the cookout barbecue picnic beach tomorrow, listening to the radio while we scavenge for food in trash cans at Lakeview."
I like the illustration of the glove-wearing woman strutting along, swinging her expensive radio like a sack of onions.
The ad also includes another portable device: the new Motorola Porta-Clock Radio. Priced slightly less at $44.95, it boasted an "accurate, rubber-mounted clock built right into your powerful portable."
Seymour's even threw in a free, beautiful 3' x 5' beach mat with the purchase of either radio.
Regular readers of this blog know that I mainly post ads like this so I can try to find examples of the pictured items that have somehow avoided the trash can over the years. But seventy years ago is a long time. After a fruitless search on eBay using various descriptions, I finally noticed the model number 63L in the ad - and suddenly a whole lot of them appeared.
