A bit of this and a bit of tat

If you were going to open up a shop, what would you sell?

I miss the stores such as Maplins (aka Radio Shack). When I used to go into town with the wife at the weekends she would go do her thing and I would go into and spend a lot of time in Maplins. For her it was like a kind of Man Crèche as she knew where she could easily find me ( don’t forget this was in the days when mobile communication was in its infancy)

Here you could buy individual electrical components, it must have been murder doing a stocktake. But I loved it. All the kits, all the ideas, and all the boys toys you could dream of.

I really miss Maplins.

I’d also love to have a store where you could get hold of good quality retro games, and equipment at a reasonable price, not at rip off prices that are currently being seen on auction sites. People really do have inflated ideas of the worth of items only a few decades old, they really are becoming the new antiquities.

So maybe the shop I’d like to own would be a mix of Maplins and a quality second hand store of memories. Somewhere the hobbyist or dreamer could walk into and spend a good while reminiscing, and maybe buying some stuff.

That would be nice.

Sony Discman D-121

Anyone remember these? To say they were popular in my younger years is an understatement. Originally I had the Walkman (A cassette tape version) and I came to the Compact disc quite late in the 1990’s to be honest. Lately I’ve been looking at getting a Discman as I do still have an amount of discs at home and I like to listen to my old music whilst walking the dog. Yep I have my phone and Spotify so I guess I have access to pretty much everything there is out there but I just fancy trying a bit of retro and stepping back into my formative years.

Why not buy one that needs attention? I can kill two birds with one stone, get a repair on this site hopefully and the jobs a good one.

So off to EBay I trot and find this Sony Discman D121 that the seller agrees to sell to me for my offer of £10 GBP.

I expect age related issues, as this particular model was produced sometime in the mid to late 90s. This one has an issue where the disc isn’t recognised and is intermittent. This range has a few known issues and to be honest I don’t think I will have too much trouble in getting this one going again (Famous last words 🤦‍♂️)

I’m expecting its arrival sometime in the coming week so I’ll come back to this post when it’s in my possession for an update on its condition.


Update: 9/3/24 23:11 – For some reason I’ve now purchased a damaged Discman D171 as well🤦‍♂️ I’m a glutton for punishment.

Sony Discman D171


Further update: 11/3/24 22:30 – Stop 🛑 🛑 just 🛑 😳

For some reason I’ve just brought another 2 faulty Discman. This time the D-141, two of them. That’s it I’ve got to stop now 😂 really I have to stop 🛑

Sony Discman D-141 x2

Thanks for passing by. Always appreciated.