A Soviet postage stamp -- 50 Years of the VEF Factory! ... 30 more years to go before the end.
VEF 221
To be exact, VEF-221-1, a penultimate model, there apparently was also a VEF-222.
The VEF factory was created in the pre-Soviet Latvia, flourished in the Soviet period but went bankrupt in 1999 soon after independence.
I think Latvia now has no industry worth mentioning. But in the Soviet times, Riga had two major radio factories - VEF and Radiotekhnica, a major car factory and
a commuter train-making plant -- all gone now [ETA May 6, 2014: scratch that bit -
new information - the train building factory is up and running -
RVR].
Funny, how the arrival of Western capitalists almost always spells an end to the domestic industry in Central or Eastern Europe. Maybe, that is exactly the idea. Anyway, back to the radio.
This radio was made in 1993 -- probably one of the last batches of VEF products.
It's plugged and working!
I should say the pictures are not quite as good as I would like them to be -- my little camera refused to focus properly. I tried to add a little sharpness and to remove glare and all via a picture processor but we get what we get. I am not going to re-do them -- time constraints and the end (a different or better) result is by no means assured given I would have to use the same camera again.
The box is rare too, so I start with it.
This is an original box, it contained this very radio and still does, although it pictures a previous modification of the VEF 221 radio -- a different speaker grille.
