All
Kolster-Brandes
Website:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolster-Brandes
Est. year: 1924
Kolster-Brandes was a British maker of radios and home audio equipment, based at Foots Cray near Sidcup in Kent. It grew out of Brandes, a Canadian company founded in Toronto in 1908, whose British arm opened in Slough in 1924 to make headphones. The KB name was used on radios, radiograms and record players for about half a century before it was dropped in the mid-1970s.
Range & what it's known for
Over the years the firm built radio and television sets, tape recorders, amplifiers, headphones and gramophones. In 1930 it supplied 40,000 Masterpiece two-valve radios in bakelite cabinets through a promotion run by the tobacco firm Godfrey Phillips, and it also won the contract for communications equipment on the liner RMS Queen Mary. Later models included the 422 Cavalcade radio and the CG20 radiogram plus record players sold as Playtime, Dancetime and Rhythm.
Who owns it and where it's made
Brandes came under AT&T in 1922, and the British company took the Kolster-Brandes name after its American parent merged with the Kolster Radio Corporation. Production moved to a former silk mill at Foots Cray in 1928. From 1938 the business belonged to Standard Telephones and Cables, the British subsidiary of ITT. In 1968 the badge became ITT KB, and by 1974 the KB part had gone and the company ceased to exist as a separate maker.
The lineup in this catalog
No Kolster-Brandes models are listed here. The brand stopped producing equipment in the 1970s.
Who it's for
Kolster-Brandes is of interest mainly to collectors and restorers of vintage British radios, radiograms and record players, who will find its sets on the second-hand market rather than in shops.
Range & what it's known for
Over the years the firm built radio and television sets, tape recorders, amplifiers, headphones and gramophones. In 1930 it supplied 40,000 Masterpiece two-valve radios in bakelite cabinets through a promotion run by the tobacco firm Godfrey Phillips, and it also won the contract for communications equipment on the liner RMS Queen Mary. Later models included the 422 Cavalcade radio and the CG20 radiogram plus record players sold as Playtime, Dancetime and Rhythm.
Who owns it and where it's made
Brandes came under AT&T in 1922, and the British company took the Kolster-Brandes name after its American parent merged with the Kolster Radio Corporation. Production moved to a former silk mill at Foots Cray in 1928. From 1938 the business belonged to Standard Telephones and Cables, the British subsidiary of ITT. In 1968 the badge became ITT KB, and by 1974 the KB part had gone and the company ceased to exist as a separate maker.
The lineup in this catalog
No Kolster-Brandes models are listed here. The brand stopped producing equipment in the 1970s.
Who it's for
Kolster-Brandes is of interest mainly to collectors and restorers of vintage British radios, radiograms and record players, who will find its sets on the second-hand market rather than in shops.