RadioShack's current proprietary brands besides RadioShack branded products include Accurian (audio and video equipment and accessories), Enercell (batteries and power accessories), Gigaware (personal computer and iPod/MP3 player accessories), Kronus (tools), Optimus (formerly audio and PA/DJ equipment; now used for digital camera accessories), Presidian (audio and video equipment, telephones, flashlights, calculators, and 2-way radios), VoiceStar (wireless phone accessories). Discontinued brands include MyMusix (MP3 players; now marketed under the Gigaware brand), Archer (wiring and antennas), Duofone (telephones & accessories), Micronta (scientific and educational equipment) and Realistic (sound equipment).
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For almost 65 years RadioShack has produced a catalog to rival no other electronics and technology company. Through the years, this catalog expanded to contain a mix of hi-fidelity stereos, amplifiers, radios, phonographs, speakers, televisions & antennas, CBs & communication equipment, computers, electronic components, electronic testing equipment, educational kits, toys, gadgets, batteries, electronic circuitry, and much more. Products from the RadioShack catalog were purchased by the everyday consumer, hobbyist, and professional. At this website you will be able to view these old 1939 - 2002 RadioShack catalogs...year by year...page by page.
RadioShack's current proprietary brands besides RadioShack branded products include Accurian (audio and video equipment and accessories), Enercell (batteries and power accessories), Gigaware (personal computer and iPod/MP3 player accessories), Kronus (tools), Optimus (formerly audio and PA/DJ equipment; now used for digital camera accessories), Presidian (audio and video equipment, telephones, flashlights, calculators, and 2-way radios), VoiceStar (wireless phone accessories). Discontinued brands include MyMusix (MP3 players; now marketed under the Gigaware brand), Archer (wiring and antennas), Duofone (telephones & accessories), Micronta (scientific and educational equipment) and Realistic (sound equipment).
The first 40 years
The company was started as Radio Shack in 1921 in Boston, Massachusetts, by two brothers, Theodore and Milton Deutschmann who wanted to provide equipment for the cutting-edge field of amateur, or ham, radio. Theodore and Milton Deutschmann opened a one-store retail and mail-order operation in the heart of downtown Boston on Brattle Street, near the site of the Boston Massacre. They chose the name "Radio Shack," which was a term for the small, wooden structure that housed a ship's radio equipment. The Deutschmanns thought the name was appropriate for a store that would supply the needs of radio officers aboard ships, as well as "ham" radio operators.
The company issued its first catalog in the early 1940s and then entered the high-fidelity music market. In 1954, Radio Shack began selling its own private-label products under the brand name Realist, but was subsequently sued and consequently changed the brand name to Realistic. After expanding to nine stores plus an extensive mail-order business, the company fell on hard times in the 1960s. Radio Shack was essentially bankrupt, but Charles Tandy saw the potential of Radio Shack and retail consumer electronics and bought the company for $300,000.
Tandy Corporation
Main: Tandy Corporation
In 1962, Radio Shack was purchased by the Tandy Corporation, which was originally a leather goods corporation, and renamed Tandy Radio Shack & leather. Tandy eventually divested itself of its non-electronic product lines.
Tandy (through InterTAN) also operated a chain similar to RadioShack in the UK under the "Tandy" name from the 1970s until the late 1990s. The stores were sold to Carphone Warehouse in 1999, and over the next few years were converted to that format, or sold off.
