1988 BASF CR-E II 90 Audio Cassette

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.

Sony UCX 60 High Bias Audio Cassette (1985)

1984 was a year of transition for Sony’s range of blank audio cassettes. The retailers’ shelves saw stock of the early(ish) 1980s design of Sony UCX, with its brushed metallic effect and attractive purple and silver livery. But before the year was out, these heavily updated replacements were ousting them, for a tenure lasting through the mid 1980s and into what we can effectively call the late ‘eighties.

Mid 1970s Scotch Dynarange C120 Cassette – Blue Label

A lo-fi feast, in the shape of a two-hour Scotch Dynarange audio cassette, from an era long before the personal computer was a thing – let alone the Internet. In fact, it even predates Pot Noodle. Us kids were all still getting our powdered food fixes from Vesta curries, paellas and chow meins when this beast was sitting on the retailers’ shelves.