BASF chrome cassettes of the 1980s were not only exciting to listen to, with their sparking high fidelity and transparent midrange – they were also a cassette-nerd’s dream, changing in visual detail at very regular intervals.
Heading the Chrome Type II post, there’s a very similar BASF CR-E II to the one above, but they’re not the same. The one depicted above – which I believe was bought in 1988 – has a smaller window, with opaque black plastic in front of the wheels. The one heading the Chrome Type II post has a bigger window, with the clear plastic stretching out to reveal the wheels. I reckon the larger window version in the other post was bought in ’87.
The main distinguishing feature that set apart these latter 1980s variants from the early to mid ’80s Chromdioxid IIs and CR-E IIs could be found at the top of the white area which served as the user-written label. The early to mid ’80s versions had a chamfered user-write portion, like this ’84 Chromdioxid II. Notice how the chamfer also appears in the plastic case relief and so is part of the overall design.
The chamfer continued into the second half of the decade, and was initially used in combination with the late 1980s style of CR-E II label, but with the label applied in one-piece format. The late 1980s designs had a straight rectangular user-write label like the tape in the above photo, and their labels were applied in two separate strips. Then, as the decade gave way to the ’90s, the cases were radically changing to bring a complete departure from the classic ’80s large label theme.
In the image at the top of this post, you’re seeing one of the intermediate late 1980s BASF cassette visual designs, positioned on a Tascam multitracker advert in a 1988 magazine. These visuals were followed by a darker look, with the product ID section of the label switching to black. That was the last main redesign before the radical case revision. And then, in the early 1990s, as was the trend across so many brands of blank tape and the pre-records, the cases switched to transparent plastic.
But even then, BASF’s minor detail differences persisted. See if you can spot the differences between the two early ’90s clear-case chromes in this post…
Tape Tardis 