29.05.2023, 22:31
Hi!
Agfa had several cassettes made by Saehan around the late 70's and early 80'S. Besides these grey ones, where they actually recycled an early 70's labels and inlay design, I am aware of the following models which were partly sourced from Saehan: Ferrocolor (red/green/blue) 1979-82 series, Fe I Ferrocolor HD 1982-85 series, green LNS from ca 1980-81, Low Noise "Wide Spectrum/High Energy" (dark red and dark blue). Most of thee were not sold in Germany, but found their way to different European countries, often in cheaply priced 5- or 10-packs. In Sweden, for example, I find lots of the green LNS. The grey one as on your picture seems to be a UK market thing. Agfa did also frequently cooperate with local tape makers for the bottom-of-the-line models like Low Noise, LNS and Ferrocolor: In France, you can find some with strange shells that I can't exactly determine who made them, in Italy as well, plus there are some Magnex-made ones in Italy, for Spain they sourced some from Socimag, and in Germany we would usually find Magna and Permaton shells when Agfa's own production capacities temporarily couldn't meet the demand. A nice thing about these co-operation made examples is that they in many cases contain original Agfa tape. The Saehans are an exception from this rule, they come with Korean tape (which actually received better test results than a contemporary original Agfa Ferrocolor in a Swedish hi-fi magazine!).
As for Saehan themselves, I don't know the exact date when they started production, but the first "Media" branded cassettes look like being from the early to mid-1970's.
Carrefour is a supermarket chain, now operationg internationally, but originally from France. The tape probably comes from Magnex, and the shell is one of the many designs from a still unknown Italian company that also made shells for Magnex, PDM, Kennex, Audiogramm, Pathé Marconi and a lot of in-house brands.
The Profigold is a Socimag shell, tape may come from BASF, but not sure.
The blue BASF is from 1983-85, and they usually have serial numbers, only the ones with Magna shells don't. This oval window shell version was mostly (exclusively?) made in Spain. Factory code for Spain was 56 from ca 1982 (before, it was 44, but that number was passed on to Brazil).
The Daiso/Panggung can very well also be from 2008, or even 2018. My thought is that the Korean tape used in several Panggung cassettes, including many that were branded Maxell UE and UR, could be the same formulation that was originally known as GoldStar HP. Colour, smell, surface finish, low output... all the same :-)
Best regards
Martin
Agfa had several cassettes made by Saehan around the late 70's and early 80'S. Besides these grey ones, where they actually recycled an early 70's labels and inlay design, I am aware of the following models which were partly sourced from Saehan: Ferrocolor (red/green/blue) 1979-82 series, Fe I Ferrocolor HD 1982-85 series, green LNS from ca 1980-81, Low Noise "Wide Spectrum/High Energy" (dark red and dark blue). Most of thee were not sold in Germany, but found their way to different European countries, often in cheaply priced 5- or 10-packs. In Sweden, for example, I find lots of the green LNS. The grey one as on your picture seems to be a UK market thing. Agfa did also frequently cooperate with local tape makers for the bottom-of-the-line models like Low Noise, LNS and Ferrocolor: In France, you can find some with strange shells that I can't exactly determine who made them, in Italy as well, plus there are some Magnex-made ones in Italy, for Spain they sourced some from Socimag, and in Germany we would usually find Magna and Permaton shells when Agfa's own production capacities temporarily couldn't meet the demand. A nice thing about these co-operation made examples is that they in many cases contain original Agfa tape. The Saehans are an exception from this rule, they come with Korean tape (which actually received better test results than a contemporary original Agfa Ferrocolor in a Swedish hi-fi magazine!).
As for Saehan themselves, I don't know the exact date when they started production, but the first "Media" branded cassettes look like being from the early to mid-1970's.
Carrefour is a supermarket chain, now operationg internationally, but originally from France. The tape probably comes from Magnex, and the shell is one of the many designs from a still unknown Italian company that also made shells for Magnex, PDM, Kennex, Audiogramm, Pathé Marconi and a lot of in-house brands.
The Profigold is a Socimag shell, tape may come from BASF, but not sure.
The blue BASF is from 1983-85, and they usually have serial numbers, only the ones with Magna shells don't. This oval window shell version was mostly (exclusively?) made in Spain. Factory code for Spain was 56 from ca 1982 (before, it was 44, but that number was passed on to Brazil).
The Daiso/Panggung can very well also be from 2008, or even 2018. My thought is that the Korean tape used in several Panggung cassettes, including many that were branded Maxell UE and UR, could be the same formulation that was originally known as GoldStar HP. Colour, smell, surface finish, low output... all the same :-)
Best regards
Martin