Vintage transistor radio Goodyear 808 Lloyds Standard Motorola

Long before the UPC code, stuff in stores was priced like this--handwritten on little stickers, often bearing the name of the store. This vintage radio, as you see, was sold at a Goodyear store--besides tires, they sold radios back in the day--for $28.95.
Well, look at this. It's got ANOTHER Goodyear price tag on it, on the radio itself. For $34.44. You don't suppose the radio was $34 and the case was $28, do you? No, that couldn't be. More likely, they dropped the price of the radio and just didn't cover over the old price. After all, prices of transistor radios were dropping quickly at the time this radio was made. And though we think in terms these days of "just-in-time" inventory strategies, back then a radio like this could lay around the store for years before finally finding a buyer. Especially a TIRE store, where radios were not the main enterprise.
Collectors have seen this radio in many versions and with many names. Some with metal fronts, and some with metal and plastic. Here's the Nipco version with the metal front. And perhaps the best-liked of the metal versions is the one with what is called the "airplane" grille, or "jet" grille on the front. Here's the Lloyd's version of this radio with that "jet" grille. This grille is sort of a copy of a copy. The Lloyd's mimics this earlier Standard radio, from the Japanese radio pioneer Standard, best known for its tiny Micronic Ruby radios. But we can go back even earlier to this Motorola which predates even the Standard. So, like I said, copies of copies. And speaking of which, where have we seen this Nipco's painted horizontal stripe on the middle of a grille before? How about here, on the Sony TR-810. Yeah, that's where I saw it. But back on today's subject, the 808, the front of THIS radio is trimmed out in plastic, featuring an underpainted dial. And there's an underpainted tuning dial to match.
The plastic body of this radio is a hard and brittle type of plastic. Something other than styrene or ABS, I believe. And there's a swing stand, which serves as a handle and also to prop the radio up at a nice angle for listening.
Inside the back, we see that it is "tropicalized." Yes, that's a real word. It refers to this mesh here over the ventilation holes. It's there to keep bugs out--in the tropics where, apparently, there are a lot of small bugs who enjoy eating electronics. I don't know. But what I do know is that a bug denied entry by this tropicalized mesh, might have no trouble at all strolling right in through the knob areas.
There are 8 Toshiba transistors inside. The radio takes four AA batteries and so operates on 6 volts.
What kind of a name for a radio is "808?" Is that the model number or the name...or both? This isn't the only radio like that. There's a radio called nothing but TR-180. You'll find an informative video dedicated to that radio, and its companion TR-170 model, on this channel if you can't think of anything better to do.
But this one being just an 808 and being sold by Goodyear makes me wonder about the brand, or lack of it. Didn't Goodyear have a radio brand name that they used? You know, the way that Western Auto had the Truetone brand and Firestone had the Air Chief brand. What was Goodyear's brand? Well, in the 1930s and ’40s, they DID at times sell radios under the Goodyear brand and their own Wings brand. But it seems that in the transistor era, they stopped selling radios branded with their own names. We see that by this time the Goodyear stores sold TVs and stereos from General Electric. And, naturally, radios. Assuming that deal was an exclusive one, Goodyear would likely be prevented by their deal with GE from selling their own branded radios, OR ANY OTHER BRAND, other than GE. So…here’s a conspiracy theory for you. What if Goodyear got around that restriction by ordering radios from other manufacturers and selling them WITHOUT a brand. Just putting the model number on the nameplate. The guy from General Electric says “Hey, you’re a GE dealer. You're not supposed to be selling radios with any other brand.” Goodyear says, “Brand? What brand?” [show radio]
The original price tags on this radio and case are part of the appeal this little item has to me. Should I have left them on there or peeled them off to better display the radio? The way I look at collectibles, there is just no way I would do that. Still, I guess that's just my personal feeling about it. Would you have left them on there too if this was in your collection?