In 1989, jewelry maker Tiffany & Co and electronics company Sony released a silver-plated Walkman (complete with a fitted wooden box) to celebrate 10 years of the portable cassette player. Only 250 were made at the time, according to The Guardian. Several decades on, and long since the cassette Walkman began its slide into obsolescence – outpaced first by the cumbersome Discman and the vibe-less MiniDisc player, then lapped by the iPod and iPhone – you can still find some of these items selling in auctions for hundreds and sometimes thousands of pounds.
Sony Walkman, the Apple iPhone of its day is enjoying a nostalgia-fueled renaissance, as collectors and buyers scour the internet and street markets of Asia to find the most pristine models of the now near-ancient technology.
Cassette players and tapes, vintage Game Boys and boomboxes seem like relics of a bygone era. So why are they being snapped up, sometimes for eye-watering prices?